


The Third Option (Because The Other Two Sucked)

by arazuta



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arazuta/pseuds/arazuta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As we all know, Polarized was the worst thing to happen maybe ever. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it still left a lot of loose ends and wasn't very satisfying. The dream sequence dominated what could've been a really great game and the storm concept being nothing but a cop-out was disappointing. I was really mad about all of this, so I decided to make my own ending that involved more redemption of the right characters, coming together, and superpowers, because who doesn't love that. Also Warren is an agender girl. </p>
<p>Some additional warnings for: bad dads, suicidal ideation, abuse, sexual assault implications, and some misogynist and ableist slurs (only from the characters we're supposed to hate).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disremember

    A hum filled the room. The air was cool. Jefferson changed the angle of a light. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. Putting the viewfinder to his eye, he took a few steps to the left. No angle here was very appealing. Bitterness towards the subject herself tarnished the mood.  
    Capturing the moment that innocence became corruption was his motive, but this girl was already past that turning point (in Jefferson’s opinion). Was already ruining whatever she touched (for Jefferson). He had been hoping he could find some use in her before disposing of her properly, but that seemed unlikely. She began to stir and he let his camera hang from its strap around his neck, grimacing. Inconvenient.  
    Rachel Amber’s eyes opened to blinding lights. She closed them tightly again and groaned, trying to roll over and bury her face into her- she could hardly move. There was a disconnect between her brain in her body, but she could tell that the surface she was lying on was a floor, not a bed. Maybe she’d partied too hard with Frank or Chloe or Nathan again, or-  
    “Hold still.” Jefferson ordered, using the toe of his shoe to nudge her ribs and turn her over onto her back. Alarm bells went off in Rachel’s head at the familiarity of the voice and she wanted to sit bolt upright, but the most she could do was curl into a tighter ball and make a pathetic sound as she tried to look through the horrible glaring lights obscuring her kidnapper’s face. Her eyes watered and she gritted her teeth. She tried to bring her hand up to cover her eyes, but it was futile. They were duct-taped behind her back.  
    “What the fuck?” She managed to croak out, her voice hoarse. Struggling against the binds, her brain slowly awakened, and she became more panicked. “What the _fuck?!_ Let- let me go!”  
    “Oh, what are you so upset about?” Though he tried to sound condescending, his voice came out more hostile than anything. “You’ve always wanted to be a model, haven’t you? Always throwing your pictures at anyone that would take them.”  
    “What is wrong with you?” She spit. Jefferson raised his camera to snap a picture of her again as she stared at him with wild confusion.  
    “What a fantastic expression. I always love when you girls look at me like that.”  
    “You sick fuck.”  
    “Oh, _very_ creative, Rachel.” His voice was oversaturated with sarcasm. “You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to faze me.” He took to his knee and snapped another picture as her face battled between fear and anger.  
    “I’ll kick your ass! I’ll-!” Jefferson cut her off with a laugh and gave her the most insincere look of sympathy.  
    “I’m sorry to say you won’t have the opportunity to do that.”  
    The sound of a door opening echoed down the hall and Jefferson brushed a strand of hair out of Rachel’s face before returning to his feet. He muttered something about it having taken him long enough. Hurried footsteps echoed down the hall and Nathan all but slid into the room.  
    “Jefferson-” He was absolutely breathless and looked terrified. When his eyes met Rachel’s he appeared relieved for a second before turning and walking towards Jefferson. “Wh- what are you doing?” His voice wavered as if it took great effort for him to speak to his teacher.  
    “Nate-!”  
    “Taking pictures, Nathan.” Everyone in the room knew well enough that he wasn’t clueless. He held his ground and looked down at Nathan. Nathan shrunk back just a bit.  
    “No- I mean, I meant- Why _her?”_  
    “Nathan, what is going on-?!”  
    “She was coincidentally accessible to me and I chose to take advantage of the situation. It would’ve happened eventually.” He wouldn’t spare Nathan a second to speak to Rachel.  
    “I- I asked you to not-” He was shaking.  
    “That’s another reason I chose to do it.” Jefferson glanced towards Rachel with obvious disdain. “She’s a distraction. You don’t know how to control yourself. The sooner we’re rid of her the better.”  
    “No!” Nathan sounded desperate, angry, but more than anything he sounded afraid. “No! You promised! You promised you wouldn’t hurt her! You lying piece of shit! I- She’s my-!”  
    “Oh, I haven’t forgotten how much you care about her. You love her, don’t you?” He scoffed. “It’s ridiculous. You’re in _lust_ with her, Nathan, and I really don’t see why. She’s a pathetic, attention-seeking slut.”  
    “Don’t talk about her like that!” Nathan barked, in sync with Rachel, who snarled, “Fuck you!”  
    “But I don’t blame you, Nathan. You’re young and obviously incompetent. You’re awful at making decisions and act brashly. To be quite frank, you’re a moron.”  
    “I’m- I-”  
    “That’s why I’m here.” He motioned to himself. “To guide you. To make all the decisions for you so you stop fucking _everything_ up.” With the same hand he poked an accusatory finger against Nathan’s chest. “To make sure you don’t ruin our partnership by getting enticed by bitches like this.” Another sweeping gesture in Rachel’s direction. “You don’t need her when you have me.” There was something icy and possessive in those words and Rachel saw Nathan take a half step back. Jefferson ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. He’d gotten a little too heated. He needed to maintain his calm to properly… convince Nathan. Nathan stood, clenching and unclenching his fists as Jefferson crossed to the cart.  
    “I was hoping to get a few more shots in, but that obviously isn’t an option.” He said evenly, picking up a needle and bottle, starting to fill it. He seemed to be on guard.  
    “I’m not… going to let you you do that. Don’t you touch her.” Rachel echoed the sentiment, telling him to stay the fuck away from her.  
    “Excuse me? Since when do you call the shots?” Jefferson asked, quirking his brow though he faced away from Nathan. He moved towards Rachel anyways.  
    “I’m going to bash your fucking skull in, I said don’t fucking touch her!” Bravery more than impulsivity motivated Nathan and he launched himself at Jefferson. Jefferson had, however, seemingly anticipated this, and easily turned around, grabbing him, and sticking the needle into his neck. The plunger was pushed down. It only took a couple seconds for Nathan to collapse on the floor. Jefferson stared at his unconscious body, unfeeling. This was the consequence of defying him.  
    “What did you do to him?!” Rachel shouted as she struggled more, trying to get away. She fought with more fervour, desperate to free her hands, to get to her feet, to run or possibly fucking strangle Mark Jefferson. She pushed herself onto her knees as if that would somehow help the situation. “You bastard! You absolute fucking monster!”  
    “Calm down. He’s just asleep.” He answered plainly, bending down to grab a different bottle from the cart. Less diluted. He filled the syringe again. “But, unlike you, he’ll be waking up soon.”  
    The needle forced its way into her throat. Rachel Amber’s world went black. 

    The junkyard was dark, crickets chirped in the distance. Nathan’s eyes opened and he sat up slowly. He was covered in a mental fog and couldn’t piece the world together. Everything was spinning. He could hear his pulse in his ears. Bits of recent conversation bounced around the back of his mind. He looked down at his clothes. They were covered in dirt. His hair was a mess. A shovel was nearby. He tried to recall where he was last. The… The dark room. Rachel. Rachel in the dark room. Rachel? Where was Rachel? His eyes fell on the shovel again and he pushed himself to his feet in a panic. What the fuck. What the fuck. Jefferson put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. He jumped and spun around.  
    “You’re finally awake I see.”  
    “What- What happened? What did you-” He took several steps back, stopping as he was interrupted.  
    “What did _I_ do?” Jefferson managed to put on a voice of perfect confusion, creasing his brow. “Are you feeling alright?”  
    “I’m just fucking peachy. Now tell me what you did to Rachel!”  
    “I buried her, of course.”  
    “You motherfucker! You killed her?! After I-” Jefferson let out a short sort of sympathetic laugh.  
    “Do you really think that’s what happened?”  
    “Wh- Yes! Yes! I tried to stop you and then you-!”  
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You texted me at ten asking me to come down to the farm house. Said you had something to show me and that I would be impressed. But when I got there you were freaking out about having overdosed Rachel.”  
    “That’s- That’s not- No! No, no, no! Fuck you! _Fuck_ you, Jefferson! I don’t know who you’re trying to fool!”  
    “I knew how detached from reality you were, but I didn’t know it was _this_ bad.”  
    “Stop! I’m not making this up! I didn’t hurt her! I wouldn’t-!”  
    “Take out your phone. See the message you sent me.” Nathan scrambled for his pocket and sure as rain he’d sent a message to Jefferson asking him to come to the dark room. But he could’ve sworn that he’d arrived at eight. He could’ve sworn. The message Jefferson had sent him was gone. He started to tremble again. He couldn’t have picked up Rachel. He hadn’t had time. He hadn’t even seen her today until now. Then. Did he? Fuck. He couldn’t remember. The day behind him started to blur as he panicked.  
    “You carried her body outside saying that you could still salvage this, and dumped her in the back of your truck, and then came back down to grab a tripod and camera, muttering the whole way. I followed you here because I was concerned. You dug a hole and took a picture of yourself with her and then blacked out. I finished the burying for you. You’re lucky I had the time to come out at all.” Nathan was still staring at the text message. There was no way. There was no way… What had he been doing today? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t fucking remember, oh no. He checked this phones messages. He’d messaged Frank a noon. What had he been doing since then? Oh fuck, oh fuck.  
    “But I saw… I saw…” He couldn’t remember what he’d seen.  
    “Poor kid, making things up because he can’t handle the trauma,” Jefferson muttered under his breath, shaking his head, making Nathan quake even harder. He didn’t want to hurt Rachel. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have. Would he? He didn’t know. When it came to Jefferson he never knew. Jefferson made him doubt himself. He felt tears welling in his eyes. Jefferson had all the answers. Jefferson was in control. Jefferson was always right.  
    “I don’t want to do this anymore…” Nathan practically whispered, dragging his dirty jacket sleeve across his eyes.  
    “There’s no way out of this now.” Jefferson said in a plain voice.  
    Nathan paused and looked up at him. He was taking heavy, wavering breaths.  
    “If you back out on our partnership, I don’t cover for you, and you get arrested.” He tried to make his voice sound gentle. It was anything but. The words cut across Nathan’s skin. “You’re a murderer, Nathan.” He started to cry. “You’ll get put on trial for killing Rachel Amber. As an adult, of course.” There was strange light in Jefferson’s eyes, as if he was very excited by the idea of Nathan being unable to escape him.  
    “And you’ll probably be sentenced to death. After all, we both know,” he reached a hand forward and grasped Nathan’s chin, tilting his head up, delighting in the tears streaming down his face, noting internally that this was the perfect image of innocence turned to corruption, and sneered, “that you have no redeeming qualities beyond this handsome face of yours.”


	2. The Storm

    Howling wind ripped the shingles off of roofs. Cars were thrown down the street. People were crushed by collapsing buildings. Everywhere there was sound- frantic, desperate- the frames of homes creaking in protest against the pressure of the storm, trying their very best to remain upright, people crying out because of broken legs and arms, the air itself screaming as it whipped around. Nathan awoke in a cold sweat in his dorm room. The blankets were tossed around, half on the floor.  
    It took him a moment to place himself back in reality. Nothing felt real anymore. He had become so disconnected. There was no point, he thought, in trying to stick to anything, in trying to feel real. It was all going to be taken away again soon. The city would be crushed. And he wouldn’t even be alive to see it. These thoughts raced through his head as he stared at the ceiling. And then they were gone. Washed away as by waves. His entire body was trembling and he couldn’t help but recall the first time he’d had the dream.  
    It was when he was seven… Maybe. He thinks. Time sort of begins to blur together when the future randomly decides to force feeds itself to you. At first it seemed like any normal nightmare. It was terrifying, the tumultuous storm upturning his hometown. But he’d stayed in bed, not wanting to awaken his fathe. He knew already the consequences of being an inconvenience. He’d eventually fallen back asleep.  
    It really began next time, several months later. The storm came to him in terrifyingly accurate detail. The roar of the approaching cyclone, the loud drops of rain on rooftops, people rushing through the streets, trying to escape, whale carcasses flung into buildings, smashing everything in their wake. The storm was apathetic to life, it caused ruin without consideration. He say how each street would be decimated. How each and every person he knew would die. How strangers he would come to know would die.  
    Finally, himself, being ripped off the ground, consumed by the storm. By the time he had snapped awake, he was sobbing. A sense of impending doom hung over him and he scrambled out of bed without a second thought.  
    His father was not as concerned as he was when he told him everybody was going to die. That an enormous storm was coming. He seemed a little too pleased, in fact. That was the first time he’d seen his father smile. Sean Prescott had placed a hand on his shoulder and told him that this meant he had a grand destiny. He had been allowed to sleep in his father’s bed that night. Nathan hadn’t understood how this could be great in any way. But he also knew by then not to question his father.  
    Even today he didn’t understand how his father could consider this a great destiny. He had tried to be as excited as Sean, but there was nothing wonderful about the concept of dying. About the concept of being sacrificed to a fucking storm for money. About Victoria getting killed in any number of horrific ways. It changed every time. Every time the dream decided to plague him, he had to watch her suffer in a new and creatively terrible way. A few times it had been enough to make him puke.  
    Today he just gripped at his sheets and tried to gather himself. His brain was a mess of incoherent thoughts slamming against one another ineffectively. The edges of his vision were swimming. It was not going to be a good day. He thought of the practically full bottle of risperidone in his gym locker and then willfully booted that thought out the door. They had helped pretty well, at least better than most medication, when he’d taken them, but he just couldn’t anymore. Jefferson had made some comment about how they were basically the same thing as the GHB they used to kidnap the girls and make them unaware. That it distorted his perception and made him passive and pliable. And he’d unwillingly injected with that shit himself. By Jefferson, so many times, and any kind of drug that he didn’t pick out personally just fucking killed him, anything that even made him think of Jefferson made his skin crawl- another thought he tried to brush under the rug. If he kept walking down that mental road he’d spend the whole day in bed, too fucking terrified of the world and disgusted with himself to get up.  
    He pushed some of his sweat-slicked hair out of his face and very slowly got up. He was dizzy, and his body ached. The idea to take a shower hit him, but he didn’t have the energy. Or the will to strip in a public place. Fucking communal showers. Instead he changed into a t-shirt and jeans and pulled on his jacket as quickly as possible, because who the hell cares, really. He covered up any B.O. with body spray until the smell almost overloaded his frayed senses. Running his fingers through his hair, he decided he looked presentable enough (he didn’t bother to check with a phone or a mirror, he would really rather not look at himself for a lot of reasons), and slipped on his shoes to step out of his room. The start of another shitty day. Another day just waiting to die.


	3. The Dark Room

    Her heart beat in her ears. It almost drowned out the sound of a camera snapping. It was followed by a voice that sounded like it came through water. Max murmured something, but she forgot what she meant to say before the words even left her lips. All her thoughts ran together, weighed down by her groggy mind. Going to the party and junkyard and… Chloe and… Jefferson. She opened her eyes, but had them forced closed again by the light of the camera. She turned her head to the side and saw Victoria on the ground next to her.  
    Her mind returned to her, if only slightly. No, she’d warned her, she’d- No, that had been about Nathan. Nathan wasn’t- Jefferson was the one that had been doing this and Max knew how much Victoria idolized him and fuck. Fuck. She’d been fooled. She’d failed to keep Victoria safe. She’d failed to keep everyone safe.  
    “Hold still,” the voice cut through her mental fog and made her cringe. Jefferson leaned down and repositioned her. She couldn’t make her limbs cooperate to struggle against him. Her consciousness faded again.  
    The next time she woke up, she was in a chair, strapped down. Her eyes fell to the ground beside her. Victoria was still there. Tied up, mumbling. The world went black again and when she next opened her eyes, Victoria was gone. Her heart jumped into her throat. She pulled against her bonds and Jefferson hummed.  
    “You’re awake again.” Jefferson’s voice made a shiver roll up Max’s spine. She slowly turned her head to face him. It was still hard to make sense of how to work her body. “I was wondering when you would come to. As you can see, I disposed of our guest while you were out.” He motioned casually to the empty bottle on the cart, using the hand not supporting his camera. “She didn’t yield many interesting shots, seeing as she’s very plastic, but her desperation was fun.” He was conversational, casual, as if Victoria’s death was nothing.  
    “How can you… How could you…” Max was at a loss for words. She clenched her fists. It helped her concentrate, pick up mental traction. “Just killing Victoria… She looked up to you… Why are you doing this?”  
    “Oh, I am so glad you asked that question, Max” He let his camera hang again. “You see… I have a particular focus. I intend to capture the minute innocence,” he held his hand up, “turns to corruption.” He turned his hand over, as if demonstrating the usurping of purity. “People like Victoria, they don’t fit the mold. She was desperate for attention. Already tainted.” He sounded dismissive, brushing off their existences with a hand-wave. Max was disgusted.  
    “But some people, they carry their hope with them. You can see it on them. Like you. I was fascinated with you from the moment I saw your first… ‘selfie.’ The purity of your image was transfixing.” Max thought she might vomit. “And Kate, too. She provided great material. It was wonderful to watch her squirm.”  
    “Fuck you… Kate survived.” Max said, meaning to keep herself determined more than anything.  
    “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Jefferson said, taking a step back to catch a picture of her just as she looked up at him, bewildered.  
    “What- What did you do to her?”  
    “I simply paid her a little visit before coming to get you. Decided to tie up some loose ends. She made some wonderful faces, Max. I have the pictures if you would like to see.”  
    “You piece of shit…” Max said with a hoarse voice. Her throat hurt. She bit her lip. It was chapped. It would be okay, she assured herself. She could fix this. She could, she could. Chloe, Kate, and Victoria would all be okay. Kate was probably safe. It wouldn’t make sense, for Jefferson to have been able to get to her. She could make sure. She could save everyone.  
    “You killed Rachel, too, didn’t you?” Max spat.  
    “Oh, no. Rachel wasn’t my doing. She isn’t my kind of subject, either. She could’ve been, but she was always looking in the wrong places. Like Victoria. All that potential, wasted.” He shook his head, full of fake sorrow. “No, Nathan was the one that did Rachel in.”  
    “Bullshit.”  
    “I took him under my wing, decided to help him discover his talents.” He didn’t acknowledge Max. She felt alienated from his words, as if he was putting on a play, now, not holding a conversation. “He could never create anything cohesive, unfortunately. But he had an eye for shadows…” He was walking around Max, still trying to find good angles for pictures. She glared at him. _“Stop_ making that face.” He snapped. It made her jump. She took heavy breaths, trying to calm down. Fear and confusion were he wanted. He straightened his collar.  
    “We developed a sort of father-son relationship,” he continued, but something about the way he said it made Max’s skin crawl. Everything about Jefferson made Max feel sick, but there was this particular quirk in his barely-present smile, this subtle shift in his body language, more domineering. “but he was… unstable. Unpredictable. And he wanted to impress me. He chose Rachel because he was infatuated with her.” The smile fell from his face with those words and he just barely stopped himself from scowling. “But he fucked up. He overdosed her.” Max’s eyes flickered to the empty bottle Jefferson had used to kill Victoria. Somehow, she doubted that Nathan would just so happen to kill Rachel in the same way Jefferson seemed to prefer to execute his victims.  
    “Those kinds of mistakes,” Jefferson said, pushing his glasses up, and fixing his hair, “coupled with the fact that he was starting to question me,” he walked to a light and adjusted it. He was talking very slowly, all his words deliberate, “was why I had to… take care of him.” He creased his brow. The look was gone in a second, but Max could’ve sworn it was agitation mixed with betrayal. She wanted to kick him.  
    “That’s a lie. Nathan wouldn’t… He wouldn’t have hurt Rachel.” She was certain of it, now. Jefferson was behind that, too. Jefferson’s mouth pulled into a tense smile for a second before he left it fall back to neutral, taking several steps towards her.  
    “You see, that’s the funny thing, Max. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘History is written by the victors,’ yes?” He was leaning in close to her, and she was tempted to spit on him. Her mouth was too dry. “And, well,” he stood up straight, holding his arms up and out, “I won. Soon your story won’t matter, either.” He showed his teeth and Max couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace. She supposed it didn’t make a difference.  
    “You’ve been braver this week than you have in perhaps your entire life. I wonder why that is.” He paused for a second and Max stared at him, confused. “That doesn’t matter, either. All of this will go away soon. Your faux-punk slut girlfriend will rot, another stupid, edgy, troubled teen who got in with the wrong crowd, that society is better without, and you… You’ll vanish into obscurity.” Max was shaking now. If she hadn’t been terrified before, she was now. There was ice in her veins. She wanted to lash out. He didn’t have a right to talk about Chloe that way. He didn’t have a right to be alive, really.  
    “And it’s all because you had to go and play detective. You couldn’t just mind your own damn _business,_ Max. I would almost be impressed with the progress you made if you weren’t so damn clueless. Did you really think you could get this close to the source of the mystery and still slip under the radar?” She didn’t bother to reply, just gave him a piercing glare, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she tried to figure her way out of this.  
    “This whole thing would make quite the interesting story. I flipped through your journal and you seem to have documented it well.” Max’s heart skipped a beat. Journal. He had- “It’s too bad, really. That you couldn’t have put that much effort into pursuing an actual career. Since all your efforts went… up in flames, you could say.” He motioned to the cart and Max spied the charred remains of her journal.  
    “Are you serious? Did you really just make a pun right now? No.” Max glowered and then rewound time.  
    “Since all your efforts-”  
    “Went up in flames?” Max asked, full of bitterness, nodding her head towards the cart.  
    “I- uh- Yes…” Jefferson was mildly surprised. The small victory was sweet. Seeing Jefferson falter at least made her remember he was human, too. She could change things around him. This would be alright. She just. Her pictures were gone. She would have to. Warren. Right. Warren had that picture of them. Before all this. She could go back. There was still hope. No reason to panic just yet.  
    “You’re getting cynical now.” He frowned. He’d snapped a few more pictures since his last words, but she was staring at the floor. “This is why I prefer to work with unaware models, but you’re just so… interesting. It’s too bad that you couldn’t keep that pure air around you longer.” He walked back and forth with his camera a few more times. “No, no good. Well, then, I guess we’re done here.” He went and set his camera on the desk. “I’d better be rid of you quickly so that I can go reflect on these pictures while they’re still clear in my mind.” There was an edge to his words that made Max gag, but the implication that she was about to die was more of a reason for panic. Max took deep breaths and tried to figure a way out of this. She asked questions. Attempted to stall. Jefferson was only slightly accommodating. And then Max heard the door open and her heart leapt at the chance for survival. David came. And with a few redos, David saved her. 

    Jefferson was on the floor now, handcuffed and out cold. Max never thought she’d be happy to see someone unconscious, but she’d also never thought she would be kidnapped by a murderous high school photography teacher. Things were fucked up, sometimes. She rubbed at her wrists and tried to settle down. It was impossible to do. There was so much she needed to try to correct. For now, just getting to Warren was the most important thing.  
    “Max… Do you know where Chloe is?” David asked her as he lifted Jefferson over his shoulder. He’d already told her about his regrets for how he acted. Max really couldn’t care less. She wasn’t the one that needed to be apologized to and she had made sure he knew that. But even if she was going to fix things, she would rather not tell this version of David about Chloe being dead.  
    “I’m going to make sure she’s okay right now.” Max answered. It wasn’t technically a lie, but it still made her feel breathless.  
    “Thank you for looking out for her, Max.” David said, softly. She simply nodded. She wanted to say that she would always be there for Chloe, but she was feeling choked up. Max left the Dark Room as swiftly as she could. She took Jefferson’s car and began to drive, calling up Warren.  
    “Hey, Warren-” Max began, only to be cut off.  
    “Oh, Max! I’m glad you’re okay. I was starting to get worried about you. I’ve been texting you all day.”  
    “Sorry. I’ve been… preoccupied.” She decided that trying to explain everything to Warren before fixing everything might be a waste of time.  
    “That’s alright. But guess what! After you ran off last night to do your thing, me and Brooke hung out. We went on a… drone date? Or something. She said she’d just come up with it while talking to you. We were both pretty drunk, so we crashed it, which sucked… And I’ve got a killer hangover, which sucks in the present tense… But, we’re going to hang out again on Sunday to fix up the drone, so…!”  
    “That’s nice, Warren.” Max couldn’t help but be disinterested and she felt kinda bad, but several lives depended on her getting to Warren and getting that picture. “But Warren, listen, do you have that picture we took last night?”  
    “Uh…” Warren paused for a minute as she dug through her pockets. “Yep! Yeah. I’ve got it with me.”  
    “I need it.”  
    “Haha, why’s that? It’s not like it’s a particularly good shot. Oh man, I look like a doofus.”  
    “You always do.”  
    “Hey!”  
    “I’m just kidding. But it’s important, I really need it for something. Where are you right now?”  
    “I’m down at the Two Whales helping out Joyce with some stuff.”  
    “Alright. I’ll be there in a little bit.”  
    “Okay, but it’s getting kind of bad outside…” Max looked out the window as Warren said this. She could see storm clouds. “So be careful, alright”  
    “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” The two of them said their goodbyes for now and Max was about to set down her phone when she noticed two missed calls. And, more importantly, a message. From Nathan. She took a deep breath, pressed play, put the phone on speaker, and set it down on the passenger seat.  
    The message was, pure and simple, a last ditch effort to not be hated. To let someone know that he wasn’t a monster, that he never wanted this. He sounded so resigned to his fate. He sounded like he thought he deserved to die, but wanted to do at least one thing to help another person before he was killed. Max gripped the steering wheel and chewed on the inside of her cheek. She wished she could tell him somehow not to worry, that she already intended to save him from Jefferson.


	4. Impending

    Nathan still had his gun. He was in the Prescott Estate, and Sean was out on some business, and he was there alone. The help had been sent out, because they were scarcely needed anyways, and the storm was coming, and finding new help was inconvenient, and so he was sitting in the living room with a gun. He had it on the coffee table and was pacing around the room, occasionally eyeing it. He still had it. Max had gotten that Warren kid off of him and let him get it back.  
    Even still it didn’t cross his mind to use it as a weapon against Jefferson. He didn’t want to use it in general. He swung it around threateningly, when he was afraid, when he wanted to pretend to be big. But he never intended to use it. He didn’t want to hurt anybody. And when it was Jefferson he was thinking about, he didn’t even consider it an option.  
    No, Jefferson had hurt him too much and for so long that he didn’t even consider the possibility that he could hurt him _back._ Jefferson was too powerful, too quick-witted, he would always be a step ahead, to defy him would be foolish, Nathan was used to not standing up to authority figures, he knew it never went well. He knew it lead to bruises and blood and a occasionally a sense of filthiness so deep no amount of scrubbing himself raw could get it off.  
    With this state of mind so heavily upon him even his precognition couldn’t see a future where he fought back against Jefferson successfully. He saw no way out. No one cared about him. Everyone hated him. His own fucking father just wanted to use him as part of a get richer quicker scheme. There was no point. No one would help him. No one wanted to see him survive. As far as Nathan was concerned, he was doomed. The premonition he had had didn’t seem to argue against that.  
    He’d been walking across campus when the vision had taken him. He entirely blacked out. All there was was him sitting on a couch in his family home when Jefferson swept in and made him feel guilty and horrible and sick as always. Made him terrified. Grabbed him by the wrists and pressed him against the wall and let him know what a useless fuckup he was one more time. And then he made quick work of him. When he’d come to he was sprawled in the grass, overcome with terror, nausea, and a sense of hopelessness.  
    No, there was no way out of this. If it wasn’t Jefferson, it would be his dad. Sacrificing him to the storm, making sure everyone else was ruined for his own selfish gain. And if it wasn’t him, the storm would fucking flatten him anyways. Just like the rest of the town. There was no good choice here. There was only him fucking dying.  
    Nathan eyed the gun again. There was another option. There was. His hands trembled at the thought of it. He could always shoot himself. Put himself out of his misery. Make sure no one else took his fucking life. One last desperate grasp at some semblance of control. He walked circles around the couch quickly, clenching and unclenching his fists. His fingers were starting to tingle. He sat down on the sofa and stared hard at the gun. Tears started to well in his eyes. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill himself. He really didn’t want to die. But since when had he ever got what he wanted in life, really? Beyond all the superficial shit, he’d always been a puppet, his fate had always been determined by someone else. Well, if he was going to die anyways, he wanted to go out on a note of freedom. To do one defiant thing. The least he could do was try to save someone else. He took his phone out of his pocket.


	5. Amends

    The storm was blowing full force now. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. Off the shore of the beach she could see the oncoming swirl of death. The wind had blown over a telephone pole and she was forced out of the stolen car. Around her was despair, but she swallowed down the urge to help. None of this would matter in a little while. She was about to rewrite it. Once everyone was alive, she could worry about the storm. She could worry about rescuing people.  
    She entered the Two Whales after having poured sand over the oil trail leading to the restaurant, the explosion was one disaster she absolutely had to prevent, and found Joyce patching up Frank.  
    “Max, I’m glad to see you’re alright…” Joyce sounded frazzled, tired. Max knew this conversation was unimportant, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away from Joyce. Joyce looked out the window for a moment, wringing her hands. “Do you know where Chloe is? You two have been together so much recently, it’s odd to see you apart.” Joyce tried to smile. Max couldn’t meet her eyes.  
    “She’s alright,” Max lied. “She just messaged me. We’re going to meet up in a little bit.” Her voice sounded far away and she hoped that it didn’t feel as strange to Joyce as it did to her. She knew she could tell Joyce about Chloe, but she was going to fix it. There was no reason to cause Joyce pain, even if it was temporary.  
    “That’s good to hear. I’ve been getting this bad feeling. Mother’s intuition, I guess. So I’m relieved that she’s alright.” Max felt sick. There was another long stretch of silence. Max shifted, gripping the soaked sleeves of her hoodie. She almost walked away when Joyce muttered, “I hope David is doing alright.”  
    “He’s fine,” Max said quickly, too eager to say something truthful after lying through her teeth. “I saw him just before he came here. He’s okay.”  
    “Alright… Max, this is kind of an odd question, and it’s really not the time, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but… Do you think I should forgive David?”  
    “Honestly?” Max asked, and Joyce nodded. She wanted the truthful answer. “I don’t really think so… I mean, he hasn’t given you a reason to forgive him. He’s been through a lot, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to forgive him… And you’ve been through a lot, too, and I don’t see you running around strongarming teenagers.” Joyce nodded again, slowly.  
    “Right, right.” Joyce agreed. “He can be a good guy, really, but he scares me sometimes. I shouldn’t have to deal with that. And neither should Chloe.”  
    “Exactly.”  
    “I think I might… give him another chance, eventually. To be a friend. Just a friend. But he’s definitely not coming in my home again any time soon.” She shook her head, pressing her mouth into a thin line. Joyce grabbed a rag out of her apron and sighed. “Well, I’ve got to get back to helping this gentleman here.” Joyce motioned vaguely in Frank’s direction.  
    “It was nice talking to you.” Max said, stepping out of Joyce’s way. She looked around the messy Two Whales until her eyes fell on Warren. She was gathering up first aid supplies on the counter when Max approached her.  
    “Hey, Max! You look… really tired.”  
    “You have no idea.” Max responded, brushing her hair out of her face. “Do you have the picture?”  
    “Yeah, I’ve got it right here.” She answered, looking around the counter for it. She’d taken it out in preparation for Max to come, but now it was buried under supplies. “What’s so important about it, if you don’t mind me asking?” Despite being obviously stressed out by the surrounding storm, she kept a friendly smile. She moved things around and picked up the picture, handing it to Max. Still not able to find a reason to devote time to explaining, Max answered,  
    “I promise you’ll find out soon. I’ll finally tell you all about what’s going on, okay?”  
    “Alright. I look forward to being included in the fantastic exploits of the great Max Caulfield.” And with that Max focused hard on the picture and jumped back in time.  
    She blinked into her past body and was disoriented for only a second. Chloe and Warren were both there and she knew there was a lot she could do here, but it would all be wasted if she didn’t do something else first. She pulled out her journal and flipped through to find a picture from yesterday- or earlier today, she guessed, determining what to call the day when you jumped through time was kind of hard. Finding one where things were calm and she had spare time, she concentrated, and lept back. 

    Her head was spinning. Jumping back after already having jumped back seemed to be pretty taxing. But ensuring Nathan didn’t get killed by Jefferson was absolutely necessary. She wasn’t going to let anyone innocent die. Okay, maybe Nathan wasn’t innocent. He messed up. But he was in a horrible position. He deserved a second chance. She turned on her phone and searched through her texts for his number. Some of these messages were cringe-worthy and made her question why she ever found him intimidating. He just did not know how to fling insults.  
    She dialed his number. He didn’t pick up, and her heart skipped a beat. No, she’d seen him not too long ago at this point. She knew it. There was still a lot of time until the party, and the fight with Warren had been only an hour or two ago. He couldn’t be dead yet. He was just busy. The call went to voicemail and she took a deep breath.  
    “I really hope I’m not too late. I don’t think I am, but still.. If I’m not too late, then I know I probably don’t have the time to explain everything here, so I’ll have to do it later, but I know that Jefferson is on his way to… get rid of you.” Max twirled her finger in her hair and tugged just slightly.  
    “And I know that this stuff isn’t your fault. I mean, you did some bad things, but you weren’t the one orchestrating all this, and I know you didn’t want to hurt anyone. Even if what you did was wrong, you were doing what you thought you had to to not get hurt. And I know you wouldn’t...” She shook her head, letting her free hand fall to her side. Mentioning Rachel now wasn’t the wisest idea, probably. She didn’t know how Nathan felt about it, but she imagined that it wouldn’t help him feel motivated to get away from Jefferson.  
    “My point is that Jefferson is a piece of shit who gets his kicks off being in control of other people and hurting them. But he’s a human being. He can get hurt too. I’ve seen it happen. He’s not some invulnerable, inescapable creature. You can get away from him. And you deserve life so much fucking more than him. I know that you can be better. I know that you can make amends. So please just… don’t take this lying down. Please try to get out of there.” Her voice almost broke, but she managed to swallow it down. She put her resolve into her voice.  
    “Then we can work together to fix things. As for me, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I can escape him. I’ll try to get in contact again soon.” Hanging up, she exhaled slowly. She closed her eyes as she felt herself getting pulled into the future. Things had changed again. 

\---

    “Shit,” Warren slurred as her cup slipped out of her hand. She reached for it with impaired movements and watched it disappear before hitting the pavement. She stared, perplexed, for a second, before warm beer spilled over her head. The red solo cup bounced off her and tumbled to the ground. Her hair was dripping and she looked at her hands as though they would somehow hold an explanation. 

    The storm was approaching.


	6. Assurance

    The phone rang in his hand. He jumped. He hadn’t been expecting it and he dreaded the possibility of it being Jefferson, calling to terrorize him before killing him. The vision hadn’t predicted that, but he wouldn’t be surprised. Jefferson would call him on the phone frequently. Would try to disarm him. He almost decided to put his phone away. He took a quick glance, expecting to feel dread. Instead he saw the name Max Caulfield on his screen. That was who he meant to call. The coincidence seemed too great to be pure coincidence. He knew he had something to warn her about, but he thought he might have an easier time if he was more prepared for the call. If he was the one that initiated. The sudden noise had shaken him up and he needed a moment to recollect his thoughts. Maybe he could call her back.  
    She left a message.  
    He licked his chapped lips and swallowed hard. He pressed play on the message and lifted the phone to his ear.  
    Her words made him shake and he thought he might cry. Fuck. Fuck. He felt relieved. Confused by her knowledge, but mostly relieved. She would be alright. More surprisingly, she didn’t want to see him die. She didn’t hate him. She thought he was redeemable. She didn’t think he was broken. She thought he was better than Jefferson. Tears stung his eyes and he wiped them with his sleeve. He hunched over and took heavy breaths for a second. Then he shoved his phone back in his pocket. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t.  
    He wanted to live and get away from Jefferson and apologize to all the people he’d fucked up and tell the truth to Victoria and become a better person. He really didn’t want to be in pain anymore. And he didn’t have to be. Max was right. He didn’t know how she knew that he could be okay, but she sounded so fucking sure of it, like it was already an assured future, and he knew how it felt to be absolutely certain of some outcome. The future encroached upon his vision again. Flashes of Jefferson arriving. His phone buzzed. That would be the teacher, calling to tell him he was coming to visit, or that he had something important to talk about. He knew it.  
    Getting to his feet, he grabbed his gun, and stumbled out of the estate. Fuck that. He wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Jefferson to kill him. He wasn’t sure where to go. Max said she’d be in contact soon. That had to mean she’d be alright. So he would just have to bide his time. Maybe go back to Blackwell. He would consider hanging out with Hayden if they hadn’t been hanging out less recently. Being too terrified to be alone with anyone kind of did that. Just hanging out outside, in the town, where he wouldn’t likely be cornered, would work. He climbed into his car and drove away from his home.


	7. Escape

    Max was back in the dark room. Things played out much the same, minus the mention of Nathan’s death, which was a relief. But Kate’s fate was still arguable, and Victoria was still definitely dead. Those were the next things to figure out the solution to. She tried to recreate her responses from the previous time, so that nothing surrounding her escape would be changed, and felt like a video game character repeating unskippable dialogue before a boss battle. David eventually freed her from her binds. Their conversation went much the same as well, though she spent the majority of it trying not to sound uninterested. As she rifled through Jefferson’s photographs for a time when Victoria was alive, her phone rang. It was Nathan.  
    “Caulfield, are you- I got the feeling that I should call you now, so I-”  
    “Yeah, I’m fine.” She answered steadily, but she was picking at her brow under the stress. Having the weight of several lives on her was a lot. She still hadn’t figured out exactly how to save Chloe. For now all she knew to do was figure out how to save Victoria and then get to Warren again. “Jefferson snagged me, but he just got handcuffed, so he’s not really a threat anymore.”  
    “That’s good.” He sounded so relieved that Max was almost pained. “And do you know where Victoria is? She’s not- she isn’t answering any calls.” Max’s throat burned. She looked through the desk for anything useful. Ah. There was a pair of scissors. If she was just going to rewind, she could put them in her pocket, but jumping back had different mechanics. Possessions didn’t carry back.  
    “I’m going to make certain she’s alright.” She sure was making that promise a lot. There was a long stretch of silence until Nathan replied, quietly,  
    “Thanks, Max.” He hung up. Max plucked another few hairs from her brow before settling on an image, putting her phone in her pocket. Her stomach twisted in knots at the thought of dealing with Jefferson again, but she steeled herself, locked her knees to stop them from shaking, and focused on the image.  
    She was in the chair again and Victoria was on the floor at her side. Jefferson was pacing around Victoria with his camera, looking through the viewfinder occasionally, but mostly making faces of distaste. She heard Victoria groan, watched her shift.  
    “Don’t move, you worthless-” Jefferson cut himself off and exhaled through his nose. “Alright. Let’s take a break. I have to go make a call anyways.” He walked briskly across the room and slammed his camera down on the desk before exiting the Dark Room. Max waited a couple of seconds, hearing his footsteps get farther away, and then said Victoria’s name. 

    Victoria had been at the Vortex club party when she had been approached by Mark Jefferson. Usually she was enthusiastic about any conversation with him, she idolized him, wanted to be respected by him, wanted to be successful like him. But that night had been slightly different. She could sense something off. On some level she had been aware that he meant to hurt her. She brushed it off as simple paranoia or self-consciousness, it wasn’t as if she didn’t deal with that constantly. She figured it must’ve been the lasting impact of him having turned her away the other night. She hated herself for that. She was sure he simply wanted to talk and she was projecting. And, after all, Max had warned her about Nathan, not Jefferson. When she found herself drugged, she was confused. This went against everything she understood about the current situation. And then she was unconscious.  
    She awoke again on the cold, hard floor of the dark room. Max was cutting into her awareness. She knew that out loud, Max was only desperately whispering her name, but somehow intent resonated with her. Max wanted to help get them both free, and that urgency rushed Victoria towards awakeness.  
    “Max…? What’s… going on?” She asked, still kind of groggy, her head pounding, the room spinning around her.  
    “There’s no time to explain right now,” Max said, almost apologetically. “I need to get us both out of here first, otherwise Jefferson is going to kill us.” Jefferson. Victoria recalled him getting her to talk in private. Handing her a drink. The bastard. “There’s a pair of scissors in that desk over there. So I need you go to grab them and bring them to me.”  
    “Shouldn’t I just grab them and free myself first?” She asked, pushing herself onto her hands and knees and starting to inch towards the desk in an awkward and slightly-painful-on-the-kneecaps way.  
    “Trust me, me having them in hand first is the much safer option.”  
    “Why should I trust your judgement? You told me Nathan was responsible for all this, but Jefferson was the one that dragged us here.”  
    “It’s because Jefferson was pinning the blame on Nathan. All the evidence pointed his way because he was using him for cover.”  
    “I still don’t understand why cutting myself free instead of shimmying across the floor both ways is somehow the less safe option.”  
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”  
    “I believed you when you accused my best friend of having a horror-bunker. And I just got kidnapped by a skeevy John Green look-alike. I think I can suspend my disbelief just a little bit.” Max let out something akin to a laugh, but with more distress underlying it. Victoria reached the desk and propped herself on her knees, rummaging around.  
    “I can reverse time.” Victoria found the scissors and turned around to raise a brow at Max.  
    “Okay, so I don’t believe you.”  
    “We really don’t have the time to debate the truthfulness of this right now.” Max insisted, pulling at the bonds around her arms.  
    “Fine, but if you screw me over I will so haunt you forever.” She began her awkward shimmy back, but tried to pick up the pace.  
    “I would never.” Max opened her hand. The sound of footsteps approached. Victoria moved quicker. She got the scissors into Max’s hand. Max gripped them tight and rewound back to before she’d gotten Victoria to wake up.  
    Alright, so now she knew Jefferson really was going to be arriving soon. She angled the scissors awkwardly and snipped herself out of her bonds, working on the process of waking Victoria in the meantime. 

    “So what the hell is going on here?” Victoria asked as Max cut the tape on her wrists.  
    “Jefferson has been kidnapping girls and bringing them here for I don’t know how long. He’s fixated on capturing innocence turning into corruption. In other words he’s a creepy sack of crap.” Max peeled the tape away from Victoria’s skin and she hissed, rubbing the tender red flesh as Max moved on to her ankles.  
    “Well there go all my hopes and dreams.”  
    “It’s not like Jefferson was much to aspire to anyways.”  
    “The majority of his work is pretty cliché.”  
    “And pretentious.”  
    “Same difference.” Victoria yanked the rest of the tape off her legs and got to her feet, woozy. “So what about Nathan?”  
    “I was wrong about his involvement. I mean, he is involved but- Jefferson has been exploiting him.” Max stood up alongside her and helped her balance. “He was going to kill Nathan.”  
    “What? Is Nate okay?”  
    “Yeah, of course. I helped make sure he got away. But for now we have to focus on our survival.” Max walked to the cabinet and pulled out a gun.  
    “How’d you know that was there?”  
    “You’re not going to buy it, but I’ve been through this a few times.”  
    “What do you mean?”  
    “I can rewind time. Usually in small increments, but sometimes I can jump back days and even years. Sounds like total bullshit, I know.”  
    “It really does.”  
    “I can prove it sometime when we’re not in mortal danger. Jefferson will be on his way down in a few seconds.”  
“What are you going to do?”  
    “I’ll threaten him with the gun. And if he doesn’t let us through, I’ll use my timey powers to rewind and… shoot him.”  
    “You don’t sound too sure...”  
    “Don’t worry. I have a good motivation.” She got in front of Victoria and squared herself, holding up the gun as she knew, from countless Warren-movie-accuracy-rants and personally watching Chloe use a pistol, she was supposed to. She thought of the bullet splitting Chloe’s skull and grit her teeth. She could shoot Jefferson.  
    The door opened and in came Jefferson, clearly enraged. He raised his arm as if to throw his phone onto the ground, then froze as he noticed both Max and Victoria. His eyes followed the length of Max’s arms to the gun. He moved his arms in front of himself, holding them up defensively.  
    “How did you get out?” He growled, then cleared his throat, trying to put on his usual charisma. “Don’t do anything hasty now.”  
    “Get out of our way and I won’t have to.” Max answered, nodding her head to the right. Jefferson paused, then nodded.  
    “Alright. I don’t intend to die today.” He slowly moved to the side, leaving the entrance open. Max followed him with the gun the entire way.  
    Victoria grabbed Max’s shoulder. She could sense something incredibly wrong with the situation. Jefferson had no intention of letting them leave.  
“He’s. He’s lying. When we try to leave he’s going to jump us.”  
    “You perceptive little _bitch-”_ He kicked the supply cart in their direction and it slammed into Max. She fell backwards into Victoria and then rolled onto her side on the floor. Time froze around her on instinct and she backed things up to before Jefferson entered the room. Victoria helped her off the floor.  
    “How the hell did you fall, Max?”  
    “Long story,” she answered, breathless. She readied herself again. Alright. Don’t let him near the cart. The door clicked up.  
    “Don’t move,” Max said this time, before Jefferson had the chance to notice them. He jumped and then scowled.  
    “How did you two-?”  
    “It doesn’t matter.” Max was on edge, full of adrenaline, letting him talk really wasn’t appealing to her right now. “Let us out or I’ll shoot.” Jefferson started to move to the right again and she shook her head, then tilted it to the left. “I don’t want you by the cart.” She emphasized. Jefferson paused, mouth pulled tight, in the edge of an insult, before he begrudgingly stepped towards the left. He kept his hands raised.  
    “Now just… don’t move.” Max’s voice wavered and she started to walk towards the exit. Victoria stuck to her back. Max kept the gun on Jefferson. Victoria gripped Max’s arm tight just before Jefferson stepped to the right, closed the gap between them, grabbed Max’s wrist, one hand on the bottom, one on the top, and with great force started to push down. Max rewound quickly. There were tears in her eyes. Fuck. Holy shit that hurt. Oh my god. Another half second of that and she’s almost certain her wrist would’ve broken. From across the room Victoria questioned how she’d gotten over there. The door opened again. She had to rewind again, taking deep breaths as she moved back into position.  
    That was… horrifying. That had been legitimately terrifying. Thus far she’d managed to avoid most pain by rewinding. Jefferson was a threat. A real threat. Not the impulsive and overconfident kind. He knew what he was doing. He could make up a plan in an instant. He knew how to disarm her and make her vulnerable. Max was starting to shake. This time, when Jefferson entered the room, she didn’t know what to say.  
    “Max,” Jefferson said, voice making her shiver. “Oh, Max, Max, Max. You seem so afraid. Still trying to play hero. But you won’t really shoot me.” He started to walk forward.  
    “Stay the fuck away from us.” Max insisted, shifting her grip on the gun and holding it forward. Jefferson paused, leaning back on his heel, considering his options, and then continuing forward.  
    “Max, what are you doing?” Victoria asked, panicked, grabbing Max’s shoulders. Jefferson approached. She was still quaking. He got close. There was a patient look on his face as he gently pried the gun from her hands. And then he reared back and went to swing the butt of the gun at her face. She knocked Victoria against the safe in her panic and moved things backward again. Holy shit. Holy shit. There was no way around this. He wasn’t going to let them out of there. If she wanted to get them both out alive, she was going to have to shoot him. She took a ragged breath as she readied the gun.  
    The second Jefferson entered the room she pulled the trigger. The sound was awful, resounding loud, making her ears ring. Jefferson looked shocked as the bullet entered his stomach. He hadn’t even had a chance to lower his arm. His phone dropped from his fingers. Max cocked the gun and fired again, this one ended up somewhere in his chest. He gripped his chest, staggered, and fell over. Max dropped the gun. She was shaking violently. She almost collapsed, but Victoria caught her.  
    “Jesus, Max, what happened to seeing if he’d let us out?!”  
    “Already tried… Evidently did not go well…” Her voice wavered hard. She felt hollow, like all her insides had just been scooped out and plopped on the ground. Shooting Jefferson should not have had this much of an emotional toll. Fucking asshole.  
    “God. God, holy shit. What do we do now?”  
    “We get out… We have to… Jefferson’s car will be upstairs… David Madsen is coming soon, he can deal with…”  
    “You were really serious about the time warp thing, huh…?”  
    “Yeah… It’s been kind of a really weird week.”  
    “I can tell.” Victoria supported her as they walked out of the dark room. They wanted to avoid looking at Jefferson’s body, but that was hard to do when they had to step around it to leave . They climbed out into the shed. The air was electric.  
    “Wait, did you say week?” Victoria asked.  
    “Yeah, why?”  
    “You could rewind time when the paint spilled on my cashmere and you didn’t do anything?”  
    “Haha, I, uh- Is that really the most pressing matter right now?”  
    “You’re lucky you just saved my life, Max Caulfield, or you would pay.” She gave Max a playful shove. Max realized she was joking. She appreciated her trying to take the edge off. “Literally. That sweater was super expensive.” She brushed her hair behind her ear and Max let out a tired laugh.  
    Max scoffed and climbed into the driver’s seat of Jefferson’s car. Victoria took shotgun. Neither of them were comfortable being in this asshole’s car, but they did their best to ignore it.  
    They pulled out onto the street. Max was thinking that Victoria should probably call Nathan when she muttered good idea and took out her cellphone. Max quirked a brow, confused, but Victoria had already put the phone to her ear.  
    “Tori!” Nathan exclaimed, having answered the phone after only one ring. “Are you alright?”  
    “Yeah. A little shaken, but okay.”  
    “Fuck, I’m so glad- If Jefferson did anything to you I would’ve-”  
    “No worries here. Jefferson is… no longer a concern.” She let those words settle for a minute before trying to bring back her conversational tone. Keep the mood light. “Guess who saved the day? None other than Mad Max herself.”  
    “Psh. I’ve hardly saved anything yet. There’s still the massive hurricane-”  
    “What? What are you going to do? _Shoot_ the hurricane?” Victoria joked.  
    “I dunno-”  
    “Are you two talking about the storm?” Nathan interrupted.  
    “Yeah, why?”  
    “Just- ask Max what she knows about it.”  
    “Max, he wants to know the deets on the storm.”  
    “Can you put him on speaker or something? This is kind of awkward.”  
    “Alright, give me a sec.” She hit the button and then set the phone on her thigh.  
    “Okay. I don’t really know anything about the storm, just, in Jefferson’s class I had this vision about the storm tearing the town to shreds-”  
    “And absolutely everyone dying, right?”  
    “Well, it wasn’t that detailed, it was kind of just the hurricane wrecking things while I stood on the cliff near the lighthouse.”  
    “Oh.”  
    “But you sound pretty well versed in storm visions yourself. Look, we need to meet up so we can discuss this properly. I have some other things I need advice on too, so- Do you think you can make it to the Two Whales?” Max was dreading the idea of having to go through the Victoria rescuing ordeal again, of having to shoot Jefferson again. Her mind was racing with thoughts of how to avoid it, how to save Victoria prior to it so she never even got caught in the first place, maybe go back to Nathan and tell him to call Victoria, and needing to go check on Kate- not to mention the task of saving Chloe, which she still wasn’t sure how to do. She considered maybe convincing her she needed to go elsewhere, or locking her somewhere, or calling up Joyce. There were too many options and so little certainty that any would work. Max’s phone began to ring.  
    “Y-Yeah, I’ll head over there now. Will you be there soon?” Nathan asked. She fished the phone out of her pocket.  
    “I think Max has a different plan in mind. We seem to be on the road to somewhere different-” Victoria answered. She looked at the caller ID.  
    “We may actually have to make a stop first anyways.” Max said, stunned. It was Chloe.  
    “Why?” Victoria asked. Max answered the phone without responding to Victoria. There was a bit of static and then came through Chloe’s terrified voice.  
    “Max, what the _fuck_ just happened?”


	8. Revitalized

    Chloe found herself floating in a dark void. She was aware of a dull throb in what should’ve been her head, but it was far away, disconnected from her now. She tried to piece together what was happening.  
    She’d gone to the junkyard. With Max. To see if Rachel was still there. She was. Then Max called her name, and… she couldn’t remember anything beyond that.  
    Now she was here. She wasn’t sure where here was, but she was pretty sure she was dead. But where was Max? Was she alright? Death tried to draw her mind away from that, to pull her down, and she was somewhat tempted, she could feel the peace it promised, knew that things would stop being awful if she went there, but she loved Max. And Max had saved her so many times. She could not go to her grave without even knowing if Max was alright.  
    But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t pull herself out of the darkness. She started to doubt herself. Maybe dying would be better. For everyone. She was the one that dragged Max into this. Into all this bullshit. Into danger. Maybe she’d be better off without her. Maybe she only got in Max’s way. Maybe Max could figure this all out alone and she’d just be a hindrance. She was constantly causing problems and getting into fights and being reckless and selfish. Fuck, all the storm crap had started when Max saved her. Maybe that was her fault, too. Maybe if she just let death come, everything would stop.  
    A light appeared in the distance. She looked at it and it felt familiar. It felt like home. Chloe moved towards it. How, she didn’t know, but she did, pushing herself forward. A blue butterfly fluttered from the depths of this light. Several more followed. She membered Rachel reading about how in some traditions, butterflies were guides to the land of the dead. And then a figure emerged. Rachel. Chloe moved faster towards her. Rachel put up a hand.  
    “Chloe, what the hell are you doing?” She asked, pulling herself further from the light.  
    “What the fuck do you mean?! I haven’t seen you in so long! I’m excited-!”  
    “I’m still dead, Chloe.”  
    “Don’t you think I know that?! It just- I just want to be with you again! That’s all I’ve wanted for so long!”  
    “You can’t give up yet.”  
    “Why not?!”  
    “Are you serious?”  
    “I- Maybe I am! Maybe being alive fucking sucks! Maybe fighting so long to find you and then learning you’re dead is awful and everything is fucked and I don’t want to try anymore! Maybe everyone is better off without me!”  
    “Don’t you dare fucking say that.” Rachel grabbed Chloe’s hands. She looked at her in surprise. “All you ever did was make my life better. You’re funny, and inspiring, and tough as nails, and brave even when you’re scared, and no one should ever have to live without you.”  
    “So then why-”  
    “No one should ever have to _live_ without you.” She emphasized, raising a hand to place on Chloe’s cheek. “My life was cut short, but your’s doesn’t have to be. You’re special, and there’s some weird shit going on in Arcadia Bay. And life- life is so finite. It doesn’t last forever. There are people that you matter to, and that matter to you, in life, still. Go be with them. You’ll have your time with me after you’ve had your fill of life. Until then, I’m not letting the great Chloe Price go down without a fight.” Chloe took a shuddering breath.  
    Rachel cupped Chloe’s face in her hands and got up on her toes. “Live. For the both of us.” She said, looking into Chloe’s eyes with determination. Then she gave her a brief kiss, cut short by Chloe a blinding light enveloping Chloe’s body. It was warm. And then it was very, very cold.  
    Life was breathed back into her lungs. Those same lungs were then filled by a handsome helping of dirt. She felt as though she was being crushed. Buried. She’d been buried. That set off some adrenaline. Blood started to pump through her body again and she regained feeling in her extremities. She started to panic when she felt that she wasn’t alone, pressed up against something or someone. She pulled her eyes open. Her body was lying on top of Rachel’s. She wished she could’ve pulled her hands up to clap them over her mouth because her revolted and distraught noise came out unimpeded. She immediately began to struggle away from the corpse violently. They were not buried that deep. She managed to push the dirt off her back, not without great effort, and scrambled backwards from the burial site of her first love. She was already crying again. What kind of sick fuck would do that?  
    Forcing herself to her feet, she brushed the dirt off of her. A large amount stayed plastered to her skin. She could feel that there was dry blood on her face and the center of her forehead was aching in a bizarre way. It took a few more heavy breaths for her to get her wits about her. She swallowed and looked up at the sky. There were storm clouds rolling in, just barely hanging over the city. She could see clearly that it was early morning and stared perplexed.  
    She’d been killed at night. Two moons were out. All that fucking bullshit. So what the hell was going on? She dug out her phone and called Max. It rang once, twice, thr- no, she picked up.  
    “Max, what the _fuck_ just happened?” Chloe rushed out.


	9. A Gay Reunion, Details Coming Out, And Lots Of Bitterness

    Max turned the steering wheel sharply as she shouted Chloe’s name into the receiver.  
    “How are you alive?!” She asked, frantically, a great weight lifting off her chest. Victoria’s shoulder bounced against the car door and she voiced a complaint, but it went unnoticed. Nathan tried to ask what was going on, but was also ignored.  
    “I don’t know, I just- I just woke up here, buried. I was fucking dead, Max. What the fuck happened? How long has it been?”  
    “When we went the junkyard last night Jefferson showed up and dosed me and shot you, and I couldn’t rewind, and holy shit, I can’t get all the details together right now, but the important thing is that you’re _okay!_ You are okay, right?”  
    “Yeah, yeah! I’m fine for the most part. Really sore and fucking caked with dirt, but what else is new.” She gently touched the small circle on her forehead where she’d been shot. It felt like a horrible bruise and she winced. “Well, maybe the fact that I’m apparently fucking immortal. No more sidekick Price.”  
    “You were never the sidekick. We were always teammates.” Max was near tears.  
    “Okay!” Victoria clapped her hands together. “Not that this isn’t a heartwarming reunion, but do you mind explaining what exactly is happening here?”  
    “Jefferson shot Chloe in the head. I mean, before he kidnapped me, he shot her, and- but- she’s alive!”  
    “How in the hell did she survive?” Victoria questioned.  
    “I don’t know and I don’t care! Chloe, are you still in the junkyard? I’m coming to get you right now. “  
    “Yep, still here… I can’t find my fucking truck. I’m glad that you’re okay, Max. But you keep mentioning Jefferson. Why the hell did the Blackwell photography teacher shoot me? And who else are you talking to?”  
    “I’m in the car with Victoria right now, and she’s got Nathan on speakerphone. Now about Jefferson. He’s the one that was using the dark room.”  
    “What?”  
    “Yeah! He’s been kidnapping tons of girls. He was using Nathan to-”  
    “Hey, Caulfield, I know you have n-no comprehension of privacy. But can you not spill my personal shit to Price?” Nathan interrupted through the phone still on Victoria’s thigh.  
    “Nathan, she deserves to know about this too, and we’re going to have to discuss it anyways-”  
    “Wait, so Jefferson was the one that killed Rachel?” Chloe asked.  
    “Yeah, Rachel was Jefferson’s-”  
    “I’m not so sure about that.” Nathan interrupted again.  
    “What do you mean?” Max asked.  
    “Wait, is Nathan saying something about it?” Chloe questioned.  
    “Mhm, give me a minute.” Max confirmed.  
    “I don’t. Remember the events clearly. I. Know I wouldn’t want to hurt Rachel. I never wanted her to get hurt. I still fucking pretend that she’s not dead. But he- I woke up in the junkyard one day and she was just. He’d fucking buried her. And he told me I killed her. I can’t even fucking remember the rest of that day. Just. Waking up and Rachel was dead and it was my fault. Because even if I didn’t do it he- he killed her because of me. And. Fucking. God.” His voice broke.  
    “Nate, are you okay?” Victoria asked, sympathetically, a little shaken. The realization that the person she had idolized was a murderer was catching up to her, as she could find no comedy to cope with anymore. He answered with an incoherent mumble and then took a shaky breath.  
    “The point is that he- he said I overdosed her. And I don’t… have any proof that I didn’t. I’m fucked in the head, so who knows.”  
    “Nathan…” Max began, but she pursed her lips, unsure of exactly how to continue. Chloe tried to ask her what was going on. “He, Jefferson, I mean, he told me that you killed Rachel by overdose just as he was about to kill me by overdose, and after he had killed Victoria by overdose before I fixed it, and after he’d claimed to have killed Kate- I just. I know it’s total bullshit. He’s a liar. He manipulates and hurts other people and wants to blame it on them. He’d killed you, too, and he was talking about how it doesn’t matter what really happened because the winner gets to write history and-”  
    “Caulfield, what the fuck are you talking about?”  
    “Time stuff.” Victoria chimed. She seemed distant. She had died in another time? Max had gone back just to save her. Well, obviously not just her. But still. She had realized she was in a deadly situation, but had hardly realized that without intervention she was absolutely and truly doomed. Coming to terms with mortality was really not something one wanted to do in the stolen car of their dead kidnapper-slash-ex-idol.  
    “Oh- I- I only told you about the vision stuff, right. I lost track of who I’d told already, I’m kind of overwhelmed. But I can rewind.” Max stammered.  
    “Time stuff. You can go back…? Is that how you knew that Jefferson was coming to kill me?”  
    “Yes. Originally you and Victoria both died. I almost got killed, too, but David Madsen showed up, and knocked Jefferson out. While I was trying to figure out what to do, I listened to this message from you where you talked about… not wanting to hurt anyone and how you were sorry. So I went back and called you, Nathan, hoping I could encourage you to get away from Jefferson. I- I think the rest is better explained in person, so I’ll get into all the details at the Two Whales. Just. You didn’t kill Rachel, Nathan. Jefferson is just really good at playing people.” She hadn’t regretted killing Jefferson for even a second, but she felt a pang of actual happiness about it for a second. No one would get fooled by him ever again.  
    There was a stretch of silence again. Chloe was the first to pipe up.  
    “You almost here? I’m kind of sick of staring at garbage.”  
    “We’ll be pulling up in a minute, actually. So… Victoria, you should probably let Nathan go.”  
    “Right.” She nodded and picked up her phone, taking it off speaker. “We’re gonna go now, but we’ll meet you at the Two Whales in…,” She looked to Max for an answer. Max mouthed two-zero. “about twenty minutes. You can wait for us inside. And could you order something for me? I could seriously use some comfort food.” She paused a minute waiting for his reply. “Alright. I’ll see you in a bit, Nate. Be safe.”  
    “Shouldn’t you hang up, too?” Chloe asked her. “Not that I want you to, but if we’re gonna to be seeing each other in a couple seconds anyways…”  
    “Haha… I’m afraid that if I do you’ll disappear.”  
    “Hey, we promised we’d be together forever, right? I came back from the dead to see you again. I’m not going anywhere.”  
    “I trust you.” Max took a deep breath. “Alright. We’ll be there any second. I- I lo-... I’ll see you soon.” Chloe said okay and they hung up. Victoria was leaning on the door, propping her cheek against her hand, and raising her brow.  
    “That was really gay,” she concluded.  
    “Hey- I mean, yeah, but- she was dead, Victoria.”  
    “I know.” She waved a hand dismissively and then smiled a little. “I’m glad she’s alright.”  
    “Me too,” Max breathed as she pulled the car up to the junkyard and parked. She saw Chloe jogging in their direction and climbed out of the car immediately, almost forgetting to unbuckle her seat belt before she did so. She ran to Chloe, hugging her tightly. Chloe hugged her back, smiling wide, almost lifting her off the ground. They stayed like that for a long moment, laughing with relief and joy and on the verge of tears, squeezing each other tighter, as if they never wanted to let go, and maybe they didn’t, but just standing there, with the clouds steadily approaching, really wasn’t the best idea. They’d come too far to die at the hands of a storm. Rain started to fall.  
    They finally pulled away from one another, but they held each other’s hands, breathing heavily, looking into each other’s eyes.  
    “I love you, Chloe.” Max said, voice wobbling. Chloe looked shocked, eyes widening, mouth falling open just a tad. “I’m sorry, I just- It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, I know you’ve gone through a lot, it’s only- You died, and I never got to tell you, and things are going to get dangerous again, so I might not have another chance-”  
    She was blushing, going to turn around, when Chloe grabbed the sides of her face and pulled her into a kiss. It was very short lived, as Chloe was clumsy, and obviously had no idea what she was doing, and the surprise had made things misaligned, and now they were both blushing and stammering. Chloe cleared her throat and quickly gathered what little of her cool she could.  
    “I love you, too, Max.” She tried to sound casual, but her voice cracked, betraying her. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked around. Max was about to say more, but she interrupted by grabbing Max’s hand and walking towards the car. “S-... So, we’re going to meet up with Nathan,” she paused to scowl at his name. Max didn’t blame her a bit. “at the Two Whales?”  
    “Yeah, so we can discuss everything going on here. Warren will be there, too…”  
    “Ah, great, so we get a scuzzball and that little jerk with a crush on you.” Chloe’s tone was mostly joking.  
    “Hey, she hasn’t hit on me since I pointed out that she’s only sixteen, so I wasn’t going to date her… She’s crushing on Brooke now.”  
    “Well that’s good, at least.” The two of them stopped next to the car, staring at Victoria. who gave them an incredulous look.  
    “Really?” She asked, leaning back in her seat. They looked for a minute longer and then she scoffed. “Fine.” She rolled her eyes and unbuckled, climbing into the back. Max climbed into the driver’s seat after some debate with Chloe and started the car up.  
    “Last stop before we go to the Two Whales is Kate…”  
    “What’s going on with Kate?” Chloe asked.  
    “Jefferson told me he took care of Kate, that he wanted to tie up as many loose ends as possible… I trust what he says about as far as I can throw him, so, not at all, but I still want to be absolutely sure...”  
    “Yeah,” Chloe nodded, placing her hand over Max’s for a second. Then the car was heading down the road towards the hospital. 

    As they made it farther towards town, more ruin was noticeable. The storm was closing in, throwing things about, uprooting trees and lampposts. The streets were already soaked. Max was tempted to stop and check if there was anyone in the area that they could help, but she knew that things would be critical soon, and that she needed to be around at the Two Whales to stop it from exploding. That was… such an odd thing to have to think so casually. She checked the car’s clock. There was still about thirty minutes until she had to deal with that, anyways.  
    She hadn’t been to this part of the town during the mountain destruction yet and so it was a new brand of disconcerting. Buildings were already being smashed in by whirling debris. The sooner they got out of there, the better. Max drove the car as far as she could and then they all piled out. Victoria was almost tempted to stay behind, but sitting in a stagnant vehicle while debris whipped around was just asking for trouble. .  
    The walk down the street was short, but from far away, it was already clear that the hospital was being evacuated. Staff were guiding patients into vans and buses. But, even more noticeably, the building had been bashed by a whale carcass. It hadn’t completely destroyed, but there was a gaping hole in the side of the structure, the creature’s tail hanging out. Max got the aching feeling that even if Jefferson hadn’t already killed Kate, something bad would happen to her in this wreckage. She jogged down the street. She was already mentally preparing to figure out a way to save her. If she could just go back and call someone to alert them about the danger- She reached a staff member and asked about Kate Marsh. They quickly stated that things were a bit chaotic right now, they wouldn’t know where she was, but no one should still be inside-  
    Max didn’t wait for more useless words and walked faster towards the building. She didn’t see Kate anywhere. She knew that Kate having already been put in a bus and driven off was a possibility. Still, she had to be sure. She could always rewind. They reached the hospital. At least, as close as they could get without being stopped. Cops kept them back. Max turned to Chloe and Victoria and told them to wait here. She got around the cops by rewinding repeatedly. It made her head pound, but she had to get inside.  
    The lower level was a mess, but you still wouldn’t know there was an apocalyptic storm on the way. It was more like a small riot had breezed through, which was accurate, she supposed. She used the directories to find a set of stairs and went up. The elevator was not a good idea, she knew. The second floor was a little more chaotic, at least from what she could see looking through the window, but she was on her way to the third floor. She pushed the door open. This floor was a mess. the ceiling was partially caved in and she could hear the howling of wind. The set of double doors that should’ve been a few feet away were blown down the hallway. She moved towards Kate’s room, struggling against wind.  
    More debris fell. From directly above Max. She was about to rewind, when the debris suddenly stopped in mid-air, thumping heavily against something translucent and gold. Max stared in confusion and fear. She registered a noise, but it didn’t sort itself into meaningful information until it was repeated.  
    “Max!” Kate yelled. She was moving down the hallway, struggling to pull with her someone slightly taller than her. They were hanging limp, obviously unconscious. She seemed to be under tremendous stress and was breathing heavily. When she got to Max, she gently grabbed her wrist, pulling her out from under the… force field, Max assumed, and then let the debris fall. Max swallowed hard.  
    “Kate!” She was so glad to see her alright. The mix with fear and amazement was overwhelming. “Are you okay? What are you doing up here? What was-”  
    “When the storm started, the staff was evacuating us, but I noticed Tara,” she nodded her head towards the girl she was struggling to hold, “hadn’t come down with us, and everyone was so busy evacuating everyone else, so I came back up, and she was unconscious in her room. That’s when the ceiling broke in. And then something miraculous happened.” She made a brief hand motion as if to indicate the shield thing she had created.  
    “I was able to stop the roof from crushing me, but Tara was a little farther away… I had to dig her out… She’s still breathing, but she’s hurt.” Max had by this point taken the other girl’s arm around her shoulder so that they could work together on bringing her down the stairs.  
    “So you have powers?”  
    “I suppose so… Though I don’t know why I would be granted them.”  
    “You’re a wonderful person is why, Kate. And you deserve to have the ability to protect yourself.”  
    “I don’t want to use them selfishly…”  
    “You used them to protect me, too. You can do both at once.”  
    “I failed to protect Tara, though…”  
    “You’re new to the whole having powers thing. It’s not easy to use them at a wide range at first.”  
    “You talk like you have personal experience.” She smiled.  
    “I’ll let you in on a secret… that is actually slowly becoming less of a secret. I can rewind time.”  
    “Oh.” Kate just said that, thinking on it. “That makes sense. You always did seem to know what to do in any given situation…”  
    “I didn’t use it when you were on the roof, though.” Max said softly. “I paused time so I could get up to the roof on time to talk to you and then I couldn’t turn it back anymore. So I only got one shot to prove to you how much you meant to me.”  
    “Max…”  
    “Sorry to bring that up again.”  
    “It’s alright, I’m just… Thank you, Max.” There was a steady moment of silence until they reached the bottom floor, pausing just before the door.  
    “Do you think you can come with me?”  
    “Where?”  
    “Well… There are several of us that have these abilities manifesting, and we think it has something to do with the storm. So we want to get together to talk about it. Me and someone else have had visions that this storm is going to destroy the entire town, and we don’t want that to happen… It’s just…” She trailed off. Asking Kate to come with her to meet with Nathan was an awful thing to do and she knew it.  
    “What’s the matter?”  
    “The other one that has been having visions is… Nathan.”  
    “Oh, Max, no, I-”  
    “I know. You don’t have to come. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned. It’s just. A lot happened over the last couple days and I discovered that Mr. Jefferson was the one… kidnapping girls. Looking at transactions and stuff, I figured out that Nathan didn’t even have anything he could’ve used on you until after you would’ve already been… picked up… Jefferson frequents the Vortex Club parties and he… grabbed Victoria, probably by slipping something in her drink, and he grabbed me too, and-” Kate was giving her a sympathetic, concerned look, but there was fear and pain underneath. Max shook her head a little.  
    “Sorry… No one expects you to forgive Nathan. He did a lot of bad things and he’s not going to get off the hook that easily. But Nathan didn’t mean to hurt anyone and he’s not going to anymore, I’ll make sure of it. And you don’t have to interact with him at all. Your powers could just… be helpful with trying to save Arcadia Bay…” Kate took a deep breath and stared down at the floor. It took her a moment, but she nodded slowly. She was shaking. This was evidently a lot to take in all at once. The teacher she had gone to for help being the one who- the- she tried to wipe it from her mind.  
    “I’ll help… Even if I am still afraid and even if I’m still not... ready to forgive him. Just as long as I don’t have to be alone with him.”  
    “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t even consider doing that to you.” They walked outside back into the loud mess of the storm. Chloe and Victoria met up with them a few feet out from hospital.  
    “You’re okay!” Chloe cheered, and it wasn’t clear whether she was talking about Max or Kate, but she gently patted Kate on the shoulder. Kate smiled softly. Chloe and Victoria took a turn supporting the unconscious girl as Max asked one of the guards where to take her. The crowd around had dwindled down quite a bit, but there was an ambulance nearby.  
    They took the unconscious girl to the ambulance and said that they’d been visiting her when this happened, that they’d been trapped inside. Kate was uncomfortable with lying, but both Chloe and Victoria were proficient in making up convincing stories. The person they talked to seemed almost too eager to believe what Victoria was saying, in fact.  
    The journey back to the car was done without talking. The rain was starting to come down harder and they all banded together, starting to get soaked. When they climbed back into the car, Max decided it was probably cruel to ask Kate to sit next to Victoria, she was already sacrificing her sense of security a lot. So Victoria got shotgun, Chloe took the driver’s seat, and Max and Kate sat in the back.  
    “So we’re really headed to the Two Whales?” Chloe asked, once again.  
    “Yeah.”  
    “It’s not really the most convenient place to talk.”  
    “It’s just a good rendezvous point. And Warren will be there already… Joyce will be too distracted with other stuff to pay attention to us, really, and it’s close to the beach.”  
    “I guess that makes sense.” Chloe shrugged and kicked the car into gear. Max decided not to mention that she also needed to stop it from exploding. 

    The drive, too, was mostly quiet. Max was sure everyone had questions or something they wanted to talk about, but they all knew it would be pointless because of the necessity of reiterating it once they gathered together. Their arrival was just as much of a mess as Max remembered it when she showed up on her own. The wind was throwing everything about, rain blurring their vision as they were forced to stop at a road blockage and twist through the streets. This time Max stopped to save everyone she could. This was the time that was going to work. That everyone possible would survive. She had to make it count. Her friends helping made it easier than she is sure it would otherwise be.  
    Max told Evan to get out of here. That he couldn’t take photographs when he was dead. That there would be time in the future for this, that he needed to get out. He agreed. They all continued their walk down the street, helping others. That’s when Max spotted Alyssa just as she was about to be crushed.  
    “Alyssa! Look out!” Too far away to hear her. She rewound, but she was in the middle of saving someone else. She couldn’t do both. It wasn’t an option. “Shit…!” She had to protect everyone. She spotted Victoria out of the corner of her eye and rewound.  
    “Victoria, Alyssa-!” She shouted, throwing her arm in Alyssa’s direction as she went to save this random fisherman that she’d once shared a pleasant conversation with.  
    Victoria tensed. She knew she couldn’t make it that far. She couldn’t figure out what to do. Her mind chanted the word ‘move.’ Move, move, move, move, move.  
    Alyssa was hit with the mental compulsion, the urgent warning of move, she jumped out of the way of some flung object and survived with just a scraped elbow. Victoria breathed a sigh or relief.  
    They finally made it to the Two Whales. Max found the bag of sand and managed to dump it across the oil spill just before the spark reached the Two Whales. They’d made perfect time, it had seemed. The group finally pushed into the diner, breathing heavy. There was a brief ruckus with Joyce expressing that she was so glad Chloe was safe, a hug, muttering, Kate shuffling close to Max and holding onto her jacket, Warren saying hello and checking everyone for wounds, then returning to cataloging first-aid supplies. Nathan had stuffed himself into a booth as far away from Frank as he could possibly get, and he only stood when Victoria approached, wrapping his arms tight around her and resting his forehead on her shoulder. Things seemed okay for a moment, but the loud rumble of the storm threatening to destroy them brought them back to reality quickly.  
    The group centered around Nathan’s selected booth. It was about as private as things were going to get. It wasn’t like they could go have a conversation outside. They would have to keep things hushed. That didn’t seem to be a problem, as no one really knew where to begin. Kate was jammed in between Max and Chloe on one side of the booth. Nathan and Victoria sat together and Warren leaned on the table, as she wasn’t really big on the idea of sitting next to Nathan. Kate kept her eyes down and Chloe kept throwing glares across the table.  
    “Okay, so…” Max began. All eyes slowly fell on her. “I guess I’ll just… start from where things began with me?” She offered, receiving a couple of nods. “In… Jefferson’s class,” his name tasted bad on her tongue, “I had a vision about a storm coming to destroy Arcadia Bay. This huge hurricane coming and ruining everything. It wasn’t very specific, but… it’s happening, now.” She glanced backwards at the entrance. “After I had the vision, I rushed to the bathroom, but, while I was in there, Nathan and Chloe came in… And Nathan shot Chloe.” She started to gently tug at her hair as she talked. Nathan looked shocked by this fact. He made it halfway through the motion of shaking his head before stopping. Chloe simply narrowed her eyes. Max had told her this already. “I was afraid and I knew I couldn’t let her die, so I… rewound. I was back in Jefferson’s class. I was able to go in and pull the fire alarm and prevent all that from happening. And from then on I had these rewind-y powers.”  
    “You can travel backwards through time?” Warren asked, though she was much less excited than Max had thought she would be. This question was more for clarification than anything.  
    “Yeah. You’re actually the last person to know that I can do that. I meant to tell you sooner, but stuff has evidently been… pretty hectic.”  
    “I see that. Can you fill me in on the other stuff that has been going on? Like why you looked so intense yesterday night?”  
    “Right… Well, I won’t go into too much detail, because it’s personal to several people here, but Mark Jefferson has been kidnapping girls to take pictures of them. He killed Rachel Amber and did… a lot of other stuff. Like nabbing me and Victoria.” Warren looked horrified and vaguely guilty, like she wished she could’ve helped. “Don’t worry. We got out fine. Evidently. I don’t know why I just said that. I mean. Well, Jefferson isn’t an issue anymore anyways. He’s probably… in police custody by now.” The people that knew Jefferson was dead gave her an odd look. She wasn’t sure she wanted Kate or Warren to know she’d killed someone just yet. She still felt sick about it, wondered if she should’ve tried a few more escape routes, though she knew they would’ve ended the same, and knew that Jefferson deserved it.  
    “You’ve been involved in a lot of rough stuff…” Warren stated, biting her lip. Chloe scoffed something about that being obvious, but Max couldn’t elbow her with the buffer of Kate in the way. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all this junk, but you’re really amazing, Max… Not in a crushy way, just that it’s cool. You’re cool.” She said the last part very sternly and Max almost laughed. Then Warren switched to seeming contemplative.  
    “Now that that’s all explained properly, back to the storm. Nathan… mentioned some stuff about visions earlier… So if he would like to expand on that…” Max offered, motioning to him.  
    Nathan had thus far been hunched over with his chin on the table and his hands overlapping on the back of his neck, keeping himself small, avoiding eye contact. He knew he was hated by everyone here except for maybe Victoria. He didn’t feel safe here. He was still looking doom in the face. He was still focusing on how to overcome the hurdle of his parents. When Max addressed him specifically, it took him a second to look up. He let his hands slide from behind his head as he sat upright and then slouched again, sinking down in his seat, trying to find the proper position for talking about these things that he’d never mentioned to anyone before.  
    “Every couple- like, a century and a half- so. Not super often but still pretty regularly, just not enough for people to pick up on the trend- Fuck. None of that made sense. Okay.” Almost everyone around the table was raising their brow at him and he grit his teeth. “Don’t fucking look at me like that. I’ll fucking-” Victoria put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. He breathed out through his nose. Fine. Fine, fine, fine, he’d try to be calm. As if that ever fucking worked. Whatever. “In the Prescott family, every hundred fifty years or so, someone is born that can see the future. And by some supernatural bullshit laws, this means a storm is going to come during their lifetime and fuck over the whole town. But if the Prescotts sacrifice their prophet kid, they’ll be guaranteed greater future wealth. It’s the ‘Prescott Family Legacy.’” He raised up his arms to give half-hearted air quotes around the words. “Basically the idea is screw everyone over for personal gain.”  
    “How is that any different from what your family regularly does?” Chloe questioned.  
    “Shut the fuck up, Price.” Nathan warned.  
    “You don’t scare me.” She returned, leaning forward, putting her hand on the table. She looked ready to pounce. Nathan tensed up and knitted his brow together, but leaned farther back against the booth on instinct. His heart was threatening to pound out of his chest. Victoria’s hand was still on his shoulder and she squeezed gently. He took heavy breaths.  
    “I... have the ability to see the future, apparently, and it fucking sucks. So. I’m the legacy kid! Dad wants to sacrifice me to a supernatural storm! That’s about fucking it. At least of what I’m willing to talk about right now.”  
    “Do you have any idea how to stop it?” Victoria asked, leaning her elbow on the table. She was trying not to seem nervous, but the whole storm ripping through town and killing everyone thing was hard to emotionally brush off.  
    “No. I never really thought of it as a fucking option. My dad would obviously never tell me a way to stop it. Since he intended to kill me so he could get even more filthy rich. So.” He threw his arms up in exasperation. “I mean there’s some books on the family involvement in it. In the basement. But since it’s only happened like four times there isn’t a whole fucking lot. Mostly just… Talking about how it causes weird shit to happen. The warning signs. So we can get shit set up for the fucking slaughter.” He dragged his hand through his hair and mussed it up, trying to work out some of the nervous energy that had been building. His leg bounced frantically. His thoughts were bouncing around, too. Figuring out what to say next was hard. “I remember reading about some shit. About how during the storm people who are naturally inclined to abilities might get powers. So there’s that. Genetic predisposition towards being a superpowered freak! Woo.”  
    Max rubbed her arm as she tried to process this information. So there weren’t very many viable solutions. They would have to figure this out all on their own.  
    “Well, Chloe has powers, too… Immortality, obviously. Coming back from the dead. All that.” Max said, That wasn’t much of anything. Warren still looked surprised, though. She let out a little hum and started digging through her pockets.  
    “As long as we’re revealing power stuff…” She said, not concluding her sentence in favor of placing a couple objects on the table. It was just a couple quarters and her phone. She seemed just a bit nervous to have all eyes on her. With some concentration, one of the coins on the table vanished. She lifted up her hand to show that the coin was in it. She repeated the same thing a couple times, making sure to make it clear that there was no trick going on. Then her phone vanished and fell from directly above them. She caught it. There was a stretch of silence. Even Nathan had sort of sat up to stare in surprise. Warren laughed awkwardly.  
    “So… I can do… That…” She tucked her possessions back into her pocket. “I figured it out yesterday. I dropped my cup and it just kind of… teleported. I started playing around with it and… I can do larger stuff, too, but it takes a lot more energy, so I just did this for an example…”  
    “That’s so fucking cool, Warren.” Max said with a grin, helping her to feel less awkward, and to help everyone else get over being stunned.  
    “Not as rad as Max’s powers, though.” Chloe teased. Max rolled her eyes. Kate smiled and then politely asked if she could make a comment.  
    “I have something, too.” She informed the group. “I’m not entirely sure how to control it yet, because I just discovered it today, but I think, if I…” She picked up a salt shaker off the table and held it at shoulder level, her other hand positioned as if ready to catch it, but by her side. She dropped it and then focused very hard on the idea of catching the salt shaker to prevent it from shattering and hurting anyone or making a mess. It landed easily on a translucent golden platform a few inches above the table. “I can make bigger ones, too, just… Do not want to show off. Or draw unnecessary attention.” Warren assured her that the power could definitely be very useful.  
    “I might have something, too.” Victoria said once things had simmered down a little. “Less developed than all of you, unfortunately, but still. I don’t know how to do it, yet, so let me just…” She focused very hard on Max, who sat up straight and looked to the side nervously, until she got the mental message ‘Did it work?’  
    “Oh. Woah. That’s… really weird.” Max said, slightly stunned.  
    “What was it?” Chloe asked, turning towards Max with intrigue.  
    “She sent a mental message, I think?”  
    “Yeah…” Victoria said, rubbing her forehead. “It… is really difficult to do, though. That part, at least. I think I can do transfers of general feelings more… Like making people agree with me, or being able to feel intentions… Like with Jefferson, remember?” Max nodded.  
    “Uh-huh.”  
    “But I think I might be able to pick up thoughts, too. Someone try thinking something at me.”  
    “I’ll try.” Nathan offered, raising his hand just slightly. There was a brief moment of them staring at each other before Victoria laughed and shoved him playfully.  
    “Real mature, Nathaniel.” She rolled her eyes. He let himself smile just a little bit.  
    “So… we’ve all got powers.” Nathan said, slouching on the tabletop again. “That’s… sure something. I guess not the weirdest fucking thing going on in Arcadia Bay. There were two moons just last night. And considering the… whatever the fuck it’s called… Proximity. How Max and I developed these things first and the people close to us also got shit. It makes some kind of weird bullshit sense.”  
    “Now the challenge is just stringing all of this nonsense together into a plan that saves Arcadia Bay. We’ve been sitting here kind of playfully chatting while everything gets fucking tossed around.” Chloe said, leaning back in the booth, stretching.  
    “I’ve got an idea.” Warren offered, standing up a little straighter. “We should take Arcadia Bay and we push it somewhere else.” She used hand movements to emphasize her point and gave the group an expectant look. Max snorted. Everyone else around the table gave them both odd stares.  
    “I…” Max cleared her throat, looking sheepish. “I got it…”  
    “C’mon guys...., Spongebob…. was a thing that happened…” Warren said, grinning awkwardly.  
    “Yeah, okay, can you two set your dork switches to off for five seconds, we need an actual plan.” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.  
    “Well, the move it somewhere else plan isn’t so bad.” Kate offered softly. When she was given an incredulous look, she raised her hands in a pacifying way. “Not for the entire town, I mean. That wouldn’t really work, since there’s nowhere to put it, and probably several other reasons, but what about moving the storm?”  
    “That’s… actually kind of plausible.” Victoria said, pressing her lips together. Kate nodded.  
    “I haven’t really used one on a mass scale before, but I could put up a shield at the shore to keep the storm at bay, to buy Warren time to figure out how to teleport something so large.” A little more confidence came into her soft voice as she saw everyone agreeing with her.  
    “There’s only one other problem to address…” Nathan said, tugging at the sleeves of his jacket. “I haven’t told my dad to fuck off yet. And when I do. He probably won’t take it very kindly. He probably won’t take us trying to get rid of the storm in general kindly. Basically, we’re kind of currently fucked on that front. Him and some hired help will probably show up and fuck with us…”  
    “Well,” Chloe began, fiddling with her necklace some, “we defend ourselves, then.” She shrugged.  
    “What?” Nathan asked.  
    “If they’re going to try to shoot us or something for stopping the storm from ruining this shithole of a town because they’re money grubbing dickbags, we fire back.” She realigned her beanie. “You and me, Nathan, we use guns. We’ll be on the shore with Kate while she puts up the shield. We protect her. I’m fucking immortal so, while I’m not worry-free, because getting shot fucking hurts, I know I won’t be dying. And you’re not bulletproof or anything, but you’ve got your precognition shit going on, so you should be fine. Warren, Max, and Victoria can go up to the lighthouse. Warren will have a clear look at the storm from there and can work her magic. Max and Victoria will be safe from the danger of gunfire. Victoria keeps us all in communication, Max rewinds if anything goes horribly wrong, and we save the fucking world. Or, y’know, what’s left of Arcadia Bay. I’m just fucking stoked on how powerful we all are.”  
    “Wow, that was actually a pretty fucking intelligent plan.” Nathan scoffed, feigning surprise.  
    “Psh. As if everything that comes out of my mouth isn’t fucking genius to you, peabrain.” Her return was even more packed with disdain.  
    “So, guns!” Max interrupted them before their hateful banter could continue. “Nathan, you still have yours, right? And Chloe has hers. But more bullets would be a good idea if you’ll be up against multiple people...”  
    “We could always steal some from Frank’s RV.” Chloe joked.  
    “I’d rather not deal with Pompidou right now, thanks.” Max shook her head.  
    “But for real, I can just swing by my house and jack some of David’s. It’s not like it matters anymore whether he wants me snagging them or not. It’s not out of our way either.” She shrugged.  
    “Alright. We’re all set, then?” Max asked, scooting out of the booth. Warren was shifting from foot to foot with nervous excitement. She was ready to be a hero, but the pressure was… immense.  
    “Yeah, let’s go.” Victoria said, nudging Nathan so that he would slide out of his seat. Everyone got up. They told Joyce they would be going, that they had some things they had to take care of. Chloe hugged her tight. She wasn’t worried about not coming back, but she was worried about the ramifications of failure. Joyce could very well die. Her mom expressed concerns about them going out in this storm. Chloe said they had something to take care of. Warren casually stated that they were going to join some students in an evacuation effort. It was a convincing enough lie for Joyce to let them leave.  
    The attempt to drive their newly constructed six-person team was a bit chaotic. They had to move back through the now even more ravaged city, climbing over debris, to get back to their cars. Nathan had seemed visibly distressed when he saw Jefferson’s car. His breathing had picked up and he’d sworn under his breath, kicking the bumper before storming off to his own vehicle. Victoria said that he probably needed some time to chat, so she and him took the truck alone, leaving Max, Chloe, Warren, and Kate to ride in Jefferson’s car together. They started on their way to save the town.


	10. Saving The World And Other Extreme Sports (Why Am I Referencing Maximum Ride In 2015)

    “Are you okay, Nate?” Victoria asked, climbing into the driver’s seat. Nathan had taken instead to curling up in the front passenger seat, holding his knees despite the discomfort of the seat belt folding awkwardly against him. He didn’t bother with a response and she turned on the car, following after the Jefferson-mobile. The silence stretched on for a while and she could feel him growing guilty beside her.  
    “I’m not mad at you, you know.” She said, keeping her eyes directed forward. “I was worried about you for a long time, but I never asked because you talked to me about other stuff, so I assumed you were fine. And I know that’s not my fault either. Hindsight is 20-20 and all that. But I’m not mad at you for hiding it. I understand. I don’t know what kind of shit he put you through, but I understand why it can be hard to talk about.” She kept her voice low and gentle. Nathan squeezed himself tighter.  
    “I know that it takes a long time to open up about this stuff. It took me until I was sixteen to finally open up about how my parents treated me.” She continued, trying to remain casual. It didn’t work so well when discussing this emotional stuff, but she didn’t want to make Nathan feel bad. “So you don’t have to tell me about it even now. Or ever if you never end up feeling ready to talk about it. Just know that I’m here for you, just like I’ve always been before, even when you were being a dick.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “There’s nothing you could do to make me hate you, you know.” Victoria added finally. More silence stretched out. Nathan finally uncurled himself, but remained slouched in his seat.  
    “Thanks, Victoria…” He mumbled, staring out the window. “I’m sorry.”  
    “It’s alright. We both messed up in a lot of… unique ways. We can have a proper jam later, yeah? For now let’s focus on this whole stopping the storm thing. We’re going to do something good. It’ll be a fresh start for both of us.” Victoria took one hand off the wheel to pat Nathan’s shoulder and he nodded.  
    Nathan tried to turn on the radio, but there was only static. 

    The stop at Chloe’s house was brief. She ran in, and ran back out with some bullets. There seemed to be a light of joy on her face. Fuck the rules, etc. She handed off half of the stuff to Nathan, since they’d both be playing guard duty, and then hopped back in the car with Max.  
    The drive to the shore began. Silence prevailed. Then Nathan’s phone rang. He jumped. He pulled the phone from his pocket cautiously. He already knew who it was.  
    “Nathan, where are you?” Sean Prescott demanded, voice already commanding Nathan. Nathan tensed up and Victoria turned her head to look at him with worry. He tried to think of a reply. Something defiant. Something brave. Something. Something... Anything? Fuck. Yeah, no, he was drawing a blank.  
    “Nathan Joshua Prescott, answer me.”  
    “Driving.” Was all Nathan could manage to choke out. He scolded himself.  
    “The storm is here. Get home immediately.” There was more silence. Nathan was breathing hard. “Nathan.” Sean said again, even more forcefully.  
    “No.” Nathan pushed himself to say. He felt like his chest might cave in. His ears were ringing. Glimpses of the future started to cut into his vision and he took a deep breath, trying to push them back. He wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let everyone die. He had fucked up too much already. “I’m not… I’m not coming…”  
    “What did you just say?”  
    “I’m not…” He trailed off this time.  
    “What? You had better be joking, Nathan. This is your legacy. Something we’ve been preparing for for so long-”  
     _“We_ haven’t been preparing for fucking anything. You haven’t done shit! Unless you count making me hate life as fucking preparations! Make it easier to kill me off! I’m not- I wasn’t born to fucking die… for someone that doesn’t even think of me as human!” Nathan chewed his lip.  
    “Are you really throwing all of this away? Are you really turning your back on your family for something as small as your own life? Are you _mental,_ Nathan?”  
     _“Yep!”_ He spat into the phone. “Completely off my fucking rocker! Thanks for finally noticing! Now fuck off.” Bitterness was bubbling up and his fear was dissipating, seeming to be blown away by the wind outside.  
    “You’d better think hard about the decision you’re making here, Nathan. I still have a tracker on your phone. You won’t escape me simply by being defiant. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, son.”  
    “When have I ever been an easy child, daddy?” He asked, mockingly.  
    “You’re a selfish, spoiled brat.” Sean hung up. Nathan slammed his phone down on his leg and swore loudly. That was stressful. But it felt good. Silence loomed for only a second before Victoria asked,  
    “...Daddy? Really?”  
    “What?” Nathan questioned, turning to her. “I was making fun of him-”  
    “Never say that word again. Ever.” 

    The roar of the storm grew louder as they approached the water. When the wind was too heavy for them to keep driving properly, Kate had to put up a shield, parting the wind in front of them. Sand was tossed around in the air even as it was weighed down by water. The earth itself seemed to shake. They climbed out of their cars, still behind the protection of Kate’s force field. Sand and water and wind bounced against the barrier and the sound of the hurricane made it hard for them to talk.  
    “My fucking father will be showing up soon.” Was the first thing out of Nathan’s mouth when he approached the rest of the group. He shouted it a little louder than he meant to, but at least everyone heard.  
    “Uh-?” Max began, but he cut her off.  
    “He called on the way here. Apparently he has a fucking tracker on my phone.” Chloe was about to point out that they would’ve found them anyways because of the enormous fucking force field they were about to have Kate make, but Nathan continued. “Too bad he couldn’t use that when it actually mattered! Hiring fucking cops to babysit me and still not noticing- What the fuck ever! I hope I get to shoot him in his ugly face.” Nathan said, pulling out his firearm.  
    “Okay, just… don’t swing that around until you need to.” Max commented, motioning both her hands in a downward direction indicating that he should lower the gun. He did just that and thumped the palm of his hand against the side of his head, starting to pace in a circle.  
    “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know. Let’s just fucking do this, okay?”  
    “Yep. The sooner this thing is gone, the better.” Chloe shouted in returning, drawing her weapon, too. “I’ll guard Kate. You stand near the path up to the lighthouse so no one can get up to the other three.” 

    Kate stood just near the edge of the water. She focused. She thought of her friends here with her, who she needed to give time. She thought of the people in the city who needed to be saved. The shield already before her expanded. It continued to grow, covering the ground around it with a beautiful golden glow. The wind power from the storm and the rain and the destruction slowly decreased behind her as she essentially bottled up the storm. The strain was immense, but it did what it was supposed to do. She stood with her hands in front of her, pressed against the field. She found that this took almost total concentration and any amount of turning around or talking to someone would make the defense waver, so Chloe took up her position  
    The rest of the group had started their unprotected trek to the lighthouse. They left Nathan at the bottom of the walk to the cliff. He could still see Kate and Chloe from where he was standing. He took to crouching behind a fallen tree and staring out at the sand, waiting for his dad and whatever unlucky fucks were going to get hired for this job to arrive.  
    At the top of the cliff, Max, Victoria, and Warren stared out at the storm. Warren approached the edge and looked down, swallowing hard. She was incredibly nervous. She wheeled around and held out her arms.  
    “They say people don't believe in heroes anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their heroes!” She shouted above the roar. Max and Victoria both gave her blank looks.  
    “Was that a…?” Victoria began.  
    “Mad Max reference.” Max answered, nodding her head. She sounded very tired.  
    “It was. It was a Mad Max reference.” Warren put her hands on her hips, posing triumphantly. “I remembered the quote in the car on the way here.”  
    “Okay, Fifi, it’s time to focus.” Victoria said, waving her hand, encouraging Warren to turn around.  
    “Alright, so…” Warren laughed, facing the storm. She’d been trying to figure out where to start for the entire car ride, but it was not exactly an easy topic to approach. There was no established science on the process of teleporting supernatural hurricanes. “I just have to, kind of…” She raised up her hands. She focused. Nothing happened. She could feel that she was doing… something. But it wasn’t enough to actually do anything to the storm.  
    “I know that in the most basic terms cyclones are cooling water vapor and heating air. But normal hurricanes also only form in tropical water and we’re in Oregon. So… I don’t know if normal weather rules apply to this thing.”  
    “Try anything you can think of, Warren.” Max kind of shrugged.  
    “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to move out heat.”  
    “Oh, yeah, that does sound pretty hard… Why would that work, anyways?”  
    “Cyclones are fed by the warm water, so once they don’t have that anymore they’ll die…”  
    “Okay, so taking out heat. Uh. I don’t know how you would go about doing that.”  
    “Me either.”  
    “Maybe just trying to move the entire thing is the best course of action, then.” Victoria said, staring nervously at the storm crashing against the shield. She then sent out a message down to Chloe and Nathan. 

    “You guys okay?”  
    “Some fuckers showed up.” Was Chloe’s immediate reply. She pressed a hand over where a bullet had grazed her shoulder. Kate had tried to encourage her to take cover, told her that she could just put a shield around herself. Chloe had responded by shooting this rando with a gun in the hand, making him drop his weapon. He scrambled for it and she shot again. It made her feel sick and this was going to take some major fucking recovery, but, for now, she numbed herself to it; the life of the town was worth more than her guilt, even if she hated this fucking place.  
    Even if this was the town where her dad and Rachel died. Even if it was a hellpit. This was the town she grew up in. This was the town where she met Max. This was the town where the only people she cared about lived. Another bullet grazed her.  
    “Jesus!” She grabbed her side. “Alright, fuck that.” She focused on Victoria. “Hey, can you tell Max that I got shot twice and that these assholes come from the left so I can just get them away from me as quick as possible, because this fucking hurts.”  
    “Yeah, I got it.” Victoria answered. “Max, Chloe needs you to rewind. Two guys come from the left.” Max nodded and rewound by about a minute and thirty seconds.  
    “Victoria, tell Chloe two guys from the left.” Max said with urgency before resuming that conversation with Warren she’d just had.  
    “On it.” She communicated the information to Chloe, who managed to get through the attack this time without sustaining any bullet wounds. “How about you, Nate? You okay?”  
    “About as okay as someone getting fucking shot at can be.” Nathan answered. He was still hunched behind the log, which was now full of bullets. He popped up to fire at the two people who had arrived. This was really fucking annoying and not at all like an action movie. Not that he expected it to be, but media kind of leaves an impression. It should’ve been cool and intense. But it was mostly really loud and the wind still blowing in this direction made it more difficult to properly aim and he was really, really terrified. The ground was wet and he was getting covered with mud. He breathed out slow. He hit one of the guys, he was absolutely sure. He could use precognition to interpret when more people were going to come, but that could leave him vulnerable and in pain…  
    He took a deep breath. Whatever. This already sucked. He closed his eyes and let the future come to him. He flashed mentally through the positions of his approaching adversaries and did his best to remember them. Now he was dizzy. Terribly dizzy. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had rolled in from him using his precognition. Time to keep shooting. His dad couldn’t have called in too many people this quickly. Nathan tried not to think about who these people were. It was hard not to. 

    Kate was becoming increasingly anxious. Standing here with her back open to harm was not exactly great. She trusted Chloe, but still. What if she had died several times and didn’t know it? This was dangerous. The more nervous she got, the harder it was to keep up the barrier. She took a shaky breath and refocused. Her head was starting to ache. Her limbs were wobbling. She had to do this. She had to. She could. She could protect herself and everyone else. A bullet ricocheted off the shield and into the sand. There was so much noise. She heard Chloe hiss in pain and closed her eyes. She shield expanded behind herself and Chloe. Just enough that Chloe could duck for cover and that Kate wouldn’t get shot.  
    “What are you doing?!” Chloe asked.  
    “I’m pushing myself anyways… I want to help you, too…” She answered, with great effort. The entire force field wavered, but she got it stable in a couple of seconds. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll reduce that, but for now, I’m okay.” She assured Chloe.  
    “If you say so…” Chloe could see already how she was in pain, but she didn’t doubt Kate. She didn’t know her, but she knew she was strong. And having something to stand behind instead of having to get repeated updates from Victoria about where people were coming from was nice. 

    “Shoot!” Warren said, gently pressing the heel of her hand into her eye and hunching over. That sure was a splitting pain. Repeatedly trying to move an enormous object was apparently not the easiest thing in the world. When she couldn’t really get a visual on what she was doing, it was hard to get done. Max kept giving her reassurance and praise and encouragement, but she was feeling like a pretty big loser right now, and she knew that Max was stressed out, and was worried she wouldn’t be able to do it.  
    “Warren, are you okay?” Max asked, putting a hand on her back.  
    “I’m… I’m good. I’m so okay right now.” Warren laughed, standing back upright, stretching. “Whoo! Just. Trying to figure this out.” She kinda jogged in place and then jumped, clapping her hands together. “Back to it, then.” She wasn’t sure exactly to what she was getting back. If she just kept blindly hacking away at this, nothing would happen. She’d exhaust herself and Kate would exhaust herself and it would’ve been for nothing. Max had her rewind, but she would eventually get tired, too. She scratched her head and considered her options.  
    “Warren, I was thinking…” Victoria started, putting a hand on her hip. “You mentioned that cyclones are fueled by the water they’re connected to. If they’re removed from it, they’ll eventually die out, right? Removing heat isn’t a viable option, but what if you… lifted the hurricane? Like, instead of focusing on trying to get all of it and transport it somewhere else, transport it up a little. Much shorter distance. Much more manageable. And it’ll spin itself out.”  
    “That’s… that’s actually definitely a good idea. Okay, that’s something to try. Thanks, Victoria!” Warren rubbed her hands together. Time to do that. 

    “This is un-fucking-believable.” Nathan muttered to himself from behind a tree. He’d had to evacuate his log. He was scraped up, but no actual bullet wounds yet, so that was a success, he fucking supposed. Truly amazing. He kept his arms in tight and recalled where the next people would be coming from. To his right. There were more than he anticipated. His dad was on his way, too. Just incredible, really. This was all fucking fantastic. Just perfect. He bit his lip and leaned around the tree, firing two bullets. That got one guy down.  
    He pressed his back into the bark of the tree and breathed heavy. Even having the advantage of being able to see the future, it meant jack shit when he was shaking violently and couldn’t fucking aim and was trying not to cry over the number of people he’d just shot. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. This was the only way. Of course. Nothing ever got to be easy. He supposed he could ask Max to go back and suggest to him that he chuck his fucking phone somewhere else. But he’d already thrown it into the water on his walk over here. And had worked out on his own by now that the giant storm-stopping force field would probably give their position away anyways.  
    What was making him more nervous was that he could now sense whenever Max changed something. He’d always kind of been able to feel stuff shifting around. He hadn’t known exactly why, but now there was an explanation, and it made him paranoid. How many times had Chloe died? How many times had he died? What if all of this was pointless? What if they couldn’t stop the storm?  
    More of the future broke into his vision, making him stumble. His dad was close. Closing in. He swallowed hard and took out the other guy. He was starting to feel numb and nauseous.  
    “Nathan!” Sean didn’t shout, but his voice was loud, clear as though he were right beside Nathan, and it made his shaking worse. “Come out right now and stop this nonsense.” Nathan quietly moved through the trees and pressed himself against another trunk. “This is your legacy. This is all you’re good for.” He felt bile rising in his throat.  
    “Ever since you were born, all you’ve been is trouble.” Sean continued. He reloaded the gun and heard his father pause. Sean turned. Sean’s footsteps started in his direction. “Let me do this so your life will actually be worth something.” He gripped his gun tighter and held his breath. “Don’t make me remember my son as the psychopath that wouldn’t help his family.” He bit his lip hard, almost hard enough to draw blood. It took incredible of effort to not shout at him to shut the fuck up. Words like those stung deep. He would give a lot to never be called a psycho again in his entire life.  
    He tried to ready himself for this. Shooting his dad. No, this fuck wasn’t even worth calling that. Shooting Sean Prescott, abusive father, economic manipulator, and attempted mass murderer. Yeah, that made things a bit easier. He stopped himself from tensing up. And then he crept around. A branch cracked under his foot. He jumped to another hiding spot quickly. Sean turned on his heel again. Fuck. Okay. A little more caution.  
    He kept his eyes on where he knew Sean would come into sight. The wind was still roaring nearby, water still dripping from leaves, but he was hyper-focused on every sound here. Sean took a step forward. It took him only an instant to move out from his hiding spot and shoot, catching Sean in the throat. It took much more than an instant for Sean Prescott to drop his gun, grasp at his throat, fall to the ground, twitch, spasm, gasp, and die.  
    Yeah, there was… no way to be prepared for that. Nathan had stared in horror through the whole thing. He’d meant to aim for the head. Hopefully quick and easy. Nothing was that quick or easy. Nothing. Ever. He felt his knees give out and he dropped onto the ground in the dirt. The contents of his stomach were urgent in their desire to come upwards, but he managed to choke his puke back down. He tried to stop tears from falling, too, but that didn’t work. He hadn’t even said anything before he’d shot Sean. Out of fear. He would never get to hear Nathan’s full retaliation for what he’d done. Nathan would never get to speak his mind to him. There was no triumph for Nathan in this. He felt weak. He felt empty. He felt unfulfilled.  
    “It’s okay.” He muttered to himself, voice hoarse. He tried to get up, but his limbs didn’t seem to want to work, suddenly. So he slumped over onto the ground. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s…” He trailed off and stared vacantly at nothing in particular. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but, eventually, Victoria’s voice pushed into his mind again.  
    “Nathan, please tell me you’re okay, or I’ll have to-”  
    “I’m not hurt.” He answered. Because he didn’t want to lie about being okay. He continued staring without an object of focus.  
    “What happened?”  
    “No.”  
    “Ah… Don’t want to talk about it right now? Later instead?”  
    “Later, yeah…”  
    “Alright… I’m here if you need anything.”  
    “Mmh…” He laid on the ground a minute longer and then slowly pushed himself up. He kept his eyes off of Sean Prescott’s corpse. He swallowed hard and leaned on a tree. He glimpsed at the possible futures. There was no more threat of him dying as long as the storm was taken care of. No more people to shoot. Chloe would be clear soon, too. He walked to the water and threw his gun in. When he looked at his hands spots flashed across them quickly. Not of blood. Something ink black. He was all too used to seeing things that shouldn’t be there, but it still made his stomach sink in an odd way. Some of Jefferson’s words rung through his head. He started towards Chloe and Kate slowly, picking the leaves off of his jacket. 

    Kate was starting to feel faint. She had pulled back a bit on the shield in front of Chloe, but didn’t feel right putting the entire thing down just yet. She could do this, she kept telling herself. This would be just fine. She could. Chloe fired another shot and it made her jump. She hoped those were nonfatal wounds. Or that someone would have healing powers. And then she tried not to think about what was going on behind her. Because that did nothing but made her upset. Chloe stood for a minute, bouncing on the balls of her feet, before going to Kate.  
    “I think that’s the last of them…” She sounded very, very far off. This was fucked up. This was so fucked up. She wanted to get off this beach as soon as possible. Never see it again. She wished she had known these people so she could feel justified in killing them. She started to fabricate little stories. The one with the blond hair was some corporate fiend that used women. The one in glasses knew about what Jefferson was doing, but turned a blind eye for some dough. The one with the slicked back hair took on these hired killing jobs for fun, didn’t even need the money it brought it, probably would do it without pay. That helped her just slightly. Anyone working with Sean Prescott to attempt to murder teenagers couldn’t be a good person, she reminded herself.  
    Kate waited a minute longer before letting the shield she’d been keeping up to protect Chloe dissipate. Spots were starting to form in her vision. Chloe noticed her wavering and started to try to support her.  
    “Yo, are you okay?”  
    “Just very tired.” It was hard to talk and keep this up, but she didn’t want to be rude.  
    “Right… I’ll check on storm teleportation progress.” Chloe focused for a second on asking for a status update and then took a moment to comment to herself that it was really weird that she was getting used to just thinking things at Victoria and assuming that they would get there.

    Warren had made… something like progress. She had managed to shift the storm up some. There was simply a careful combination of things she had to do to keep it up enough that it would actually die out. That involved a series of space-jumpy things repeatedly putting the storm into the same place. She needed total focus.  
    “How is she doing?” Victoria asked in a whisper. “Chloe wants an update.”  
    “She’s close to figuring it out, I think.” Max answered.  
    “Warren’s almost got it.” Victoria told Chloe.  
    “Well she’d better hurry it up. Kate looks ready to pass out.”  
    “Max,” Victoria whispered, “apparently Kate is in bad shape and Warren needs to hurry.”  
    “Well… I don’t want to psych her out. So we’ve got to just let her work her magic…” Max began to gently tug on hairs at the nape of her neck.  
    Kate was really not doing so hot. Her breathing was labored. Suddenly she felt blood drip out of her nose and looked down.  
    “Shit.” Chloe whispered, using the bottom of her shirt to wipe up the blood. “Alright, that means you’re at your max. We’ve got to get this figured out right now.” She contacted Victoria and Max again.  
    “Max, Chloe says Kate has a nosebleed.”  
    “Shit.” Max bit her lip. “That means Kate’s powers will probably give out any second.”  
    Warren managed to shift the storm farther up. Contact with the water was broken. She nearly threw her hands up in her excitement, but managed to rein herself in just before doing so. Still, yes, yes, yes. Cyclone removed from its source of energy. It would burn itself out as long as she could keep it this elevated.  
    “I did it! Max, look, I-”  
    “I see it, Warren. It’s really amazing.” She smiled wide. “Do you think Kate can drop the shield now?”  
    “Not… just yet.” Warren said, pausing in the middle to consider. “But now that I know what I’m doing, I can probably get this farther away from shore. You should go check on her if things are safe. Victoria and I can handle this. Probably. If Victoria doesn’t mind staying, I mean.”  
    “As long as you promise not to flirt with Victoria.” Max tried to lighten the mood with a joke.  
    “As if.” Warren laughed, then made a small sound of concern. “Not that you’re not pretty, Victoria, just, I’m currently holding a hurricane and have a date on Sunday and don’t really know you.”  
    “Whatever, space cadet, just do your storm stopping thing.” Victoria laughed. “Max, go check on Kate. We’ll wrap this up.” 

    Max started on the path down from the lighthouse. She glanced back at it one last time. The vision where this had all began. And it was finally going to end. A quarter way down the trail, she saw the force field dissipate, and panicked for a moment.  
    “No worries.” Victoria said, popping into her head. “I told Kate to put it down. Warren moved the storm far enough away that she thought it would be safe to do this thing protection-free.”  
    “Was that her exact wording?”  
    “No, that’s me spicing up the conversation. I don’t have a lot to do up here but stand and watch Warren fight an apocalyptic storm. Which is much less eventful than you would imagine.”  
    “Victoria, I was just up there like two minutes ago, I know how boring it is.”  
    “Yeah, but you’re no longer here to share in the agony of waiting, making it even more boring.”  
    “Pff, whatever. How is Kate?”  
    “Barely conscious, from what Chloe says.”  
    “Damn… I hope she’s okay. She really pushed herself.”  
    “You’ve done it before too, though, haven’t you?”  
    “Done what?”  
    “Pushed yourself. You said the nosebleed meant her powers would give out soon.”  
    “Yeah.”  
    “And you were fine.”  
    “True…”  
    “So she’ll be okay, too. She’s a fighter. Albeit a very gentle one.”  
    “I’m sure she would appreciate the compliment.”  
    “I’ll make sure to give it to her directly when she’s not brain-hemorrhaging on the beach.”  
    “Wow, Victoria, you switched from comforting to morbid in point two seconds flat.”  
    “It’s a talent, I know.”  
    “I’m at the bottom of the path, so I’m going to not continue this conversation.”  
    “Okay, ttyl!”  
    “Did you actually just- Nevermind.”  
    She ran down the beach. The sand made it so that she went slower, but she wanted to get to Kate immediately. She hugged her, and then Chloe, when she got to them, and they sat in the sand, huddling together. Nathan stayed a respectful distance away, staring at the storm as it was slowly moved farther from the beach. Max cradled Kate’s head and asked her if she was alright.  
    “A hundred times better now that you’re here.” She smiled, and it was genuine, her eyes closing with it, even though she was trembling and pale.  
    “Do you think you’ll be okay?”  
    “Yeah. Just really worn out. If I sleep, I’ll regain my strength. But I want to see this first…” She turned her head to look at the storm. It was steadily getting smaller.  
    They watched as the storm shrank and then suddenly came undone. The horrible clouds dissipated. No more roar of the wind. The grey rainclouds still hanging over slowly began to roll through the sky, away from Arcadia Bay. There was a sudden calm. Everything was serene and beautiful.  
    “Thank you, Kate.” Max said as she looked down at her. Kate placed her hand over Max’s and smiled and then muttered something about needing a nap, closing her eyes. Everything would be just fine. Chloe helped Max get her into the car. She was placed gently in the front passenger seat and buckled. The door was left open for the time being.  
    Warren and Victoria started their own travel down the path. Warren was holding a hand over her black eye as she stumbled up to Max, a huge, goofy grin on her face.  
    “Are you alright, Warren?”  
    “I don’t think my head has ever hurt this bad.” She laughed, and then cringed. “I’ll be fine, though. I just need to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Provided our school didn’t get crushed… Yikes.” Max let out a little puff of air, almost a laugh.  
    “Well, I guess we’d better go see… Drive back into town. See all the damage. Maybe start cleaning up. At least, those of us that can still move around.” Max offered, looking at the clear skies stretching out in front of her. Everyone mumbled their agreements. They climbed back into their cars. Warren fell asleep almost instantly in the back seat. Chloe leaned forward from her spot in the back to watch Max drive.  
    “So we really did it, huh?” She asked. She sounded tired and almost disbelieving, but mostly very happy.  
    “Yeah, I guess so.”  
    “All this shit is finally over. We’ve got it all resolved.”  
    “Well, we’ll probably still have to deal with cops…”  
    “Eh, at least you can use your rewind powers to make sure none of us get too fucked over.”  
    “I don’t even know if they’re going to stay after this whole storm thing…”  
    The city was a mess, but Max and Nathan both knew, driving around and through rubble, that it could be so much worse. There were people walking about. Everyone seemed to be doing fine. Nicks and bruises, but nothing too severe. The buildings and streets had suffered the most.  
    “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. The storm was just a supernatural trigger for something we’re genetically predisposed to, remember? And it’s not like you don’t still have a need for them.”  
    “Does that mean you’re going to be invincible forever, too?”  
    “Probably. Isn’t that fucking rad?” Max responded by kind of shaking her head and letting out a low whistle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
    “Promise me you won’t do any dangerous stunts just because you can’t die.”  
    “I’m not a masochist, Max. I’ll keep my chaos within reasonable bounds, like always.”  
    “Good.” She nodded once, satisfied. There was a stretch of silence. Chloe looked out the window.  
    “I still hate this place.” Chloe remarked.  
    “Oh, me too.” Max laughed.  
    “The second we can get out of here, we really need to.”  
    “Yeah. After I graduate we can go on that road trip like you wanted. But there’s a lot of work that needs to be done first. Once everything is cleared up, it’ll be like a fresh start for everyone.”  
    “A fresh start without the Prescotts.” Chloe emphasized, clearly thrilled.  
    “Nathan’s still around.”  
    “Don’t remind me.”  
    “At least he’ll get a chance to do things right, too…”  
    “Mm.” She made a face like she was considering the statement. “I guess that’s pretty good.” She determined, flopping back into her seat. Chloe reached into her pocket and pulled out her carton of cigarettes. She rolled down the window as she lit one up and watched the smoke twist in the air. “I’m still going to kick his ass, though.”  
    “I’m pretty sure you’d break him.”  
    “No doubt about that.” Chloe grinned, flicking ashes out the window.  
    The closer inland they got, the less destruction there was. As they drove up to Blackwell, they found that the damage was minimal. Some things had been blown around. There was a shattered window. But mostly thing seemed normal. Students loitered, walked through wet grass, went about their daily business.  
    Max climbed out of Jefferson’s car and realized again what an odd situation this was. What an odd situation all of this was. She supposed casually parking the stolen sports vehicle of her photography teacher was a nice way to punctuate such an extraordinary day. Kate was still dead tired and Chloe took it upon herself to piggyback her to Max’s dorm room. Walking with her newly assorted group of super...sort-of-pals onto a campus full of students blissfully unaware of how close to death they’d just come was quite an experience. She was mostly glad they didn’t know.  
    Max noticed Samuel picking up a blown over trash can and setting it back in its proper place. She told Chloe that she would catch up and half-jogged over to him.  
    “Hey, Samuel, how are you doing?”  
    “Max, it’s always nice to see you.” He smiled gently at her. “I’m fine. Did you see the storm?”  
    “I did. A little too closely, if I do say so myself.” She laughed a little and brushed her hair back.  
    “It must have been what all the animals were afraid of so long. We’re lucky it went away. It must mean things are going back to normal. Really normal.” He didn’t add emphasis on the last two words, but Max knew they were significant.  
    “I think you’re probably right. But I think it’ll take some time for things to settle.”  
    “Of course. Repairs always have to be made before life can really continue.” He bent over to pick up trash that had been strewn across the grass. “Things must be cleaned up and rebuilt. Once things are in order, everyone can truly recover from the disaster.” Listening to Samuel talk always made Max feel wiser.  
    “Would you like some help?” Max asked, already moving to start picking up trash as well.  
    “I appreciate the offer, Max, but I don’t mind doing it.” He dropped what he had collected so far into the bin, allowing Max to join him before he continued. “You probably have your own messes to get started on. I wouldn’t want to hold you back.” His eyes trailed in the direction Max knew the little ragtag band had gone. Max nodded.  
    “Alright. I’ll talk to you later, though. Have a good day, Samuel.” He echoed the sentiment and she walked back to the sidewalk, then followed the way to her dorm. She walked inside and found Max chilling in a chair, Kate asleep on her bed.  
    “Where did everyone else go?” Max asked.  
    “Nathan went with Victoria to her room. Warren decided to head back to her room and crash.” She picked up a pencil off Max’s desk and twirled it between her fingers. “Everyone is pretty beat.”  
    “I am, too.”  
    “That makes six of us.” Chloe nodded. “Y’know, it turns out that dying makes you kind of exhausted.”  
    “Want to conk out on the floor together until Kate wakes up?” Max asked, closing her door and already flopping down on the floor.  
    “Sounds like a plan.” Chloe quickly joined her, sprawling out. Max scooted closer and curled against her. “We can call for an official debriefing on the traumatic bullshit we just endured once everyone’s had time to rest.”  
    “Pff.” Max laughed, but she didn’t disagree. She knew that they’d all just been through something wild. She knew that many of them had trauma relating to this that stretched far deeper than just today. But for now, she was just glad that everyone was alive and that she was here with Chloe, listening to her steady heartbeat.


End file.
